Column: Cutting into yesterday
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- Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:23:35 -0400
Kalamazoo Gazette, Michigan USA
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Column: Cutting into yesterday
By Jeff Barr
October 20, 2007 21:30PM
KALAMAZOO -- Jim's Barber Shop is equipped with an antique chair and a razor
strop. The walls are lined with campaign posters from long-ago presidential
candidates: Roosevelt, Harding and Landon, to name a few.
The tiny Kalamazoo shop on Vine Street and Westnedge Avenue represents
old-fashioned barbering at its best. Jim Buist, 63 -- blustery and opinionated,
intelligent and charming -- offers haircuts with no set price. The engaging
banter is free.
There's another detail you should know about Buist, who has been cutting hair
for 40 years. He's legally blind.
"I've had four operations on my left eye, all around 1997, and I can't see much
of anything out of it," he said in the midst of a recent business day,
playfully and randomly reminding his visitor that "Buist is a strong, Dutch
name, and don't you forget it."
Doctors have not operated on his right eye, but the vision there is 20/250,
which is in the legally blind range.
"I'm seeing out of just a little pinhole in that eye, and it could close up at
any time," he said. "The doctors are surprised it hasn't happened already, and
I'm very grateful for the sight that I do have."
So are Buist's customers -- mostly old-timers -- who amble into Jim's Barber
Shop.
Buist has been at the Vine Street location for seven years after clipping and
grooming for a quarter-century in Portage. Before that, he worked his way
through college as part of a four-barber operation in downtown Kalamazoo and he
cut hair for a spell in Grand Rapids, too.
Buist estimates that about 70 percent of his regulars followed him when he
moved to Vine Street in 2000. The move was precipitated by the expansion of
Westnedge Ave. in Portage.
"The city bought the property and evicted me, and at first I was angry," said
the white-beared Buist, his plaid, short-sleeved shirt tucked into work pants
held up by ever-present suspenders. "But when I started seeing my old customers
coming in here, plus some new ones from around this area, I counted my
blessings."
Business has slowed in recent years as Buist's sight deteriorates, and as those
who appreciate the barbering of another era relent to old age.
Buist uses a magnifying glass to help him read, and he also owns a pair of
$2,000 magnification spectacles he calls his "Republican glasses."
"Anything that costs that much must be meant for a Republican," Buist said.
"Did I mention I was a liberal?"
Buist, who graduated from Western Michigan University in 1968 with a bachelor's
degree in political science, is as liberal with his anecdotes as he is with his
politics.
As he adroitly demonstrated sharpening a straight razor on the worn, brown
strop attached to a barber chair of yesterday, he is asked if his eyesight
still allows him to shave his customers.
"If you asked me to shave you right now, I absolutely would not do it," he
said, holding the gleaming blade. "But I've got this one customer who insists
that I shave him, even though I've told him I probably shouldn't.
"He's been coming in here for years, but if he still wants me to shave him I
don't think he has any idea how blind I am."
Even with his failing eyesight, Buist remains able to cut hair because so many
of his customers have been coming in for years. He knows them by voice, and by
hairstyle.
There is one complication that presents an unusual consequence. Buist has never
set a standard price for a haircut, and it's now more difficult to know what to
charge his customers.
"I used to look at the way people were dressed when they came in the door and
I'd know what to charge them," he said. "Now, I can't see across the shop
anymore, so I have to listen to how they talk.
"If that doesn't work, and they ask me how much a haircut costs, I ask them how
much they've got in their pocket."
Cutting hair has paid the bills for much of Buist's life, even before he bought
his first shop in 1976. He walked into a barber shop on Westnedge, offered the
owner $500 for the place, and he's been Jim the Barber ever since.
He laughs uproariously, his ample bellow straining his suspenders, when he is
asked to estimate how many heads of hair he's clipped.
After some lengthy calculating, more laughter, and some mild chastising pointed
toward his questioner, Buist comes up with an answer.
"My goodness, I've never figured it out, but it must be about 60,000," he said.
Buist wrapped up a trim on a regular as his visitor prepared to leave.
Snow-white clippings fell to the floor as Buist conducted a little
hair-cutting, Bush-bashing and yarn-spinning.
The smiling customer bade good-bye and reached into his pocket for $12 cash.
No credit cards accepted. Old-fashioned barbering, remember?
-- You can email Jeff Barr or call him at 388-8581. His columns run Sundays and
Thursdays. Read more of Barr's work in the Gazette's columns page.
http://blog.mlive.com/kzgazette/2007/10/column_cutting_into_yesterday.html
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