Got Your Garden in Yet? ©
Posted: Friday, July 18, 2008
by Arlene Wright-Correll
http://www.learn-america.com
For many, many years we lived in Northern New York where each fall someone would ask Carl, "Got your buck yet?" Since Carl is not a hunter he would always answer, "No". Apparently it was strange for a guy not to be a hunter in a hunting area.
About 10 years ago when we moved to Kentucky the question was, "Got your tobacco in yet?" Since Carl was not a tobacco farmer, but someone who did run around in bib overalls his answer was always, "No".
These were mostly questions asked of Carl while sitting in the barber shop awaiting his turn to get his hair cut. The barbershop questions taking the place of the now defunct country store where the village men congregated during down times of farming.
Carl says there sure are a lot of weather discussions in a barber shop waiting room. I suppose even a beauty shop has discussions but probably not about the same subjects. I never paid much attention to discussions in beauty parlors since I usually took power naps while sitting in the chair.
These meeting places are an integral part of rural America and hopefully will be around for a long time. This is where information whether rumor or fact is disseminated and was the spread of local news in areas where there was no newspaper and even before radio and TV.
Today it is a good source of information too small or insignificant for large media to use, but essentially necessary for the local grape vine.
With the advent of high gas prices and the shrinking of our budget Carl and I have taken to cutting each other's hair. I guess not only will we be cutting hair, we will be cutting the local grape vine!
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Well written. I can relate to the beauty parlor grape vine....and the power napping in the chair.RoschelleYes ago when I had a very stressful, but happy career, I needed to go to the beauty parlor a lot and I did a lot of meditating in those chairs.
Hi Arlene - I thought of New York too - Syracuse - where the question often was "skis ready?" On the haircut side, I've been cutting my husband's hair for a long time. I keep trying to send him to someone who could do it better, but he won't leave my scissors. I can give a fast haircut now and usually it looks ok...Thank you for reading my article. Know Syracuse Well. We lived in Potsdam area for a long long time and whenever I had to drive to Buffalo in the winter on business I always put my cross country skies on my roof ski rack in case of an emergency on the hwy. I could just ski out for help. This was way before cell phones. We just did the haircut exchange yesterday morning. We are getting better at it each time.
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