My daddy barbered for all of the family members and neighbor men when Willis, Lila and I were young. Daddy learned to barber when he was a young man at home with 6 brothers to practice on. He cut hair for others up until the day he died. We were used to people dropping by for a haircut at any given moment. Since we did not have a telephone, appointments could not be made ahead of time. Daddy was most always at home and the customers were aware of it. Rarely a day went by during the fair weather day, that he did not have at least one head of hair to cut.



Walter Bowles, an older neighbor of ours, always rode his horse from his home two miles away to get his hair cut. We were often surprised to look up and see him riding into the yard or hear him knocking on the door. We were not surprised by those driving cars, because we heard them from a distance.



Mr. Bowles compensated for the price he felt was not enough by offering Lila and I a nickel or dime each time he came for a hair cut. One time, he only had a dime and a nickel so he decided to let us choose what we wanted of the two coins. I always gave Lila the first choice of most things like that. So when she chose the nickel, I remained silent, but was upset and after Mr Bowles left, I complained to Mama that Lila got the most money because the nickel was larger. Mama explained to me that I got the most money, but it did not make sense to me, because my dime was not near as large as the nickel Lila chose. I still wonder why the dimes are made smaller than a penny and nickel.