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It’s Sid’s Barber Shop For Cuts and Courtesy
By Stephen Fay
Last Saturday, a
freshly shorn customer asked Sid Emerson if he might use the shop
phone. Certainly, said Sid. The chap took up the receiver and then
paused in pleasant bafflement. It was a rotary phone: The man had to
go back in time to remember how to dial.
Sid Emerson tends to one of his “victims.”
PHOTO BY STEPHEN FAY |
Going back in time
is what you do at Sid’s Barber Shop, a humble red bungalow set
between two Franklin Street parking lots. The time travel begins
when you spy the ancient bottle of Three Roses Hair Tonic on the
shelf below the mirror. Then you take in the leather razor strop
suspended from the barber chair, the hand-lettered price notice
($7.50 for walk-ins, $9 for appointments), the old telephone, the
assortment of well-broken-in chairs. And, for that matter, Sid
himself, who has been a barber for 42 years
Sid is an
old-fashioned barber: His clients are men and boys only and he
doesn’t do shampoos. No blow dries, no bleaching, nothing fancy.
Half the little boys in Ellsworth got their first haircut at Sid’s.
And some of those little boys aren’t so little anymore. Sid has cut
the hair of four generations.
He is naturally
reserved, which is an essential Maine trait, and also courteous,
another Maine trait. If a customer wants to talk, Sid is pleased to
engage. If, on the other hand, the customer is in a reflective mood,
he can have his hair cut in silence. It is as soothing a setting as
you can find and Sid’s customers appreciate the calm. On Saturday
mornings, though the shop doesn’t officially open until 8, the men
and boys start gathering outside the bungalow at 6.
Sid is a cheerful
barber, a quiet chuckler. When he finishes a cut and has brushed off
the customer’s neck and shoulders, he turns to the gentlemen in
waiting and calls out: “Next victim!” The banter in the shop
includes a modest sampling of joking and joshing. Typically, any
teasing is at Sid’s expense. Unlike the straight razor, the humor is
never sharp.
These days, Sid is
thinking about cutting back. The years on his feet, the
20-haircuts-a-day schedule, have taken a toll on his legs and hips.
He would like to spend more time with his seven grandchildren (and
one on the way). Sid and his wife (she is in charge of the kitchen
at the General Bryant E. Moore School on State Street) have three
grown daughters who also live in
Maine.
Besides visiting the kids and grandkids, Sid and his wife enjoy
little trips. One favorite destination is the
Norman Rockwell Museum
near Bennington, Vt.
If Sid does cut
back, he plans to keep himself engaged: He is teaching himself
guitar and he’ll keep up his swimming regimen at the Holiday Inn.
And he’ll continue singing (baritone) in the choir at the First
Congregational Church.
For his regulars,
the prospect of Sid’s retirement is not a happy one. If he really
does it, then his customers, like Sid, will have to travel to
Vermont to experience Norman Rockwell themes. It won’t be as
convenient as it is now, where all you have to do is enter the red
bungalow on Franklin Street.
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