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Chronicling changing times
Country barbers used to be found all over the place, especially in the South. When asked what led to their decline, Eubanks opined.
“When the Beatles came over to this country, barbers weren’t needed so much anymore, and everyone went to the beauty shop”. As he recalled, during the Beatles’ first tour, moptops became all the rage for boys. Then, in the years following, the fashion for long hair came and stayed for years, and many young men would get haircuts a couple of times a year at most. Ironically, since then crew cuts returned and moptops are back again with some high-school boys.
Both barber and long-time patrons all agree that the most significant changes over the decades since the barbershop opened have been the decline in agriculture and the changes that have come along with the constant climbing of land prices. “My dad bought forty acres back in ‘48 or ‘49 for $5,000. Now my broker tells me ‘do' I want to be a millionaire?” Eubanks said. Although he’s been offered a royal sum for his land, he’s not biting just yet. Lake a lot of people from here, he’d like his family to be able to have a house here. It is hardly a revelation to most in the county to read that surging land values have been a double edged sword. Patrons at the shop bemoan the influx of wealthy outsiders, who come in and build grandiose houses but don’t do business inside the county. At the same time working people who have been here all their lives can make some cash by selling, but they would have to move, and their relatives and younger working people can’t afford to buy a hduse in the county.
Oasis amid the noise and bustle
Amidst the tides of change, though, there is still a place of quiet in Sperryville, where the tonsorial tradition of the country barber begun long, long ago by Marion G. Watts is carried on today under a sign saying “The Barber of S’Ville”.
The Sperryville Barber Shop is open Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30 to 5, Friday from 8:30 to 5:30 and Saturday from 8:00 to 3:30. John Eubanks operates at the Flint Hill barbershop on Mondays, from 1 to 5:30, and the Sperryville shop is closed Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays.
Tel: (540) 987-8808.
Bill Kossler can be reached at bkossler@timespapers.com
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