Barber retires after 40 years

Published in The Post-Star

April 1, 2007

QUEENSBURY -- Locks of white, gray and black hair mingled on the floor of Jack's Barber Shop, forming a soft carpet under Jack Wright's feet by mid-morning.

He didn't have time to stop and sweep them up. Even without an appointment book, he almost always had a customer in his old-fashioned barber's chair, and several more flipping through the hunting and fishing magazines in the waiting area.

Last week, all of them were talking about the same thing.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna go," complained John Hoey, 79, a longtime customer. "He's the best barber in the area."

After 40 years of barbering, Wright retired Friday, giving his last cuts and shaves at his Main Street shop near Exit 18.

"I came for the last call. I don't really need a haircut, but I figured I better get one while I can," said Jack Woods, 65, a retired school custodian from Corinth who came in Thursday morning.

"It's worth driving over here," Woods added. "I used to be on the Village Board, and he'd ask me how things were going in the village -- but a lot of the time, he'd know more about it than I did! They say women are gossips, but men are just as bad, you know."

Wright agreed.

"I hear more confessions than a priest does, I tell you!" he said, grinning. "And I have a few priests that come in, too!"

But, he said, whenever his wife asked him if he heard anything interesting that day, he'd just shake his head.

"I would tell her, nope, nobody said a thing," he said. "What goes on in the barbershop, stays in the barbershop."

Wright grew up in South Glens Falls and became a barber's apprentice in 1967, after four years in the Navy. He opened his own shop on Route 9 in 1971, and moved to Main Street in 1982.

Barbershops like this used to be a community gathering place, Wright said, but he has seen a lot change in the last few decades.

"That's the part of the business I miss, all the neighborhood people just coming in to chat," he said. "People today, they just want to get their haircut and leave. Everybody's in a hurry."

Wright smeared a bit of lather on the back of a customer's neck, wielding a straight-edge razor as calmly as a putty knife. A handmade sign above the mirror displayed the current prices: "Haircuts $9.00, Beard Trim $2.00"

"When I started out, haircuts were 75 cents," he said. "That was a few days ago, wasn't it, Jack?"

"Oh, yup," the white-haired man in the chair replied.

Time hasn't changed Wright's tools and techniques. Simple black combs and silver shears are still his staples; classic, clean men's cuts are his specialty. He prunes wild eyebrows, shapes sideburns and scrapes away stray neck hairs, often adding a splash of Bay Rum aftershave at the end -- "the stuff the old cowboys used," he says.

He keeps a stash of lollipops on hand for younger customers.

"It's neat to see the kids grow up. Some of them, now I'm cutting their sons' hair," he said. "But a lot of my older customers have passed away -- I just saw another one in the obituaries today. It's hard. I've been to a lot of funerals."

Wright thinks traditional barbers like himself might be a dying breed. Although barbershops have enjoyed a nostalgia-driven surge of patronage in recent years, their numbers declined drastically in the last half of the 20th century while beauty salons blossomed.

As of 2004, New York had nearly 144,000 licensed cosmetologists and only 8,021 barbers, according to the state Department of State.

Wright blames The Beatles, among other things.

"Back in those days when I first started out, we had the Beatles come along, and suddenly everybody wants long hair," he said. "Now, everyone wants barbers again, but there's not many of us left."

Jack Huskie, 76, has been coming to Wright for a dozen years, and was perturbed to hear of his retirement.

"Every time my barbers retire or die, I gotta find a new one, and it's hard!" he said.

Even Wright's newer customers were distressed to hear the shop would be closing.

"What? You're making me sad!" exclaimed Rico Rapisora, 38, who moved to the area from California a few years ago. "When you move from one place to another, and you're used to going to a barber, finding another one is very comforting," Rapisora said. "It's like home."

Wright, 65, said he's looking forward to spending more time at his own home, and outdoors.

"I've got a little fishing boat and I never have time to use it -- I didn't even get it in the water last year," he said. "I'm gonna do a little more fishing, hunting, golf and travel. My wife just retired, too, so we'll take some trips."

On Thursday, many of the customers who walked in were surprised to hear the shop was in its final days.

"He didn't check with us to see if he could retire!" said Wayne Carlton, 65. He sighed as he settled into Wright's chair.

"Cut 'er nice and short, Jack," he said. "It may be a long time before I find another barber."