The barbers of Bellaire
While
one of those newfangled haircut franchises recently went out of business, a
barbershop quartet manages to survive in Bellaire--Bebe's, Frenchy's,
Ralph's and the not-so-accurately named Original Barbershop.
It's
the clip joint at the corner of South Rice Avenue and Bissonnet Street that is
burned into my early memory of growing up in Bellaire.
I still
recall the manly Saturday ritual of climbing into my dad's green '67 Ford
Galaxy 500 and riding down South Rice toward our biweekly
trim.
And, no, it's not a case of transference from The Andy
Griffith Show--but I'd swear the barberŐs name was Floyd. He wore black,
square-framed glasses, and his barber's tunic looked uncomfortably like a
dentistŐs.
Compounding the fear factor was Floyd rigging a
Naugahyde booster seat in what looked like a padded electric chair. As he
pumped the side armature to raise the seat, it made me think he was priming the
generator.
In
those days boys wore their hair short, period, and the shorter the better. Ah,
the elegant simplicity of the "buzz cut," or "burr." Just take electric shears
and mow through a childŐs hair like a lamb at market.
Hairstyles
are more varied now, but Bebe Garcia, the current proprietor, handles comb and
scissor like a master. Sitting in the familiar chair--sans the booster--as she clips my graying locks, I am regaled with the saga of the
Barbers of Bellaire.
According to this oral history, a Cajun named
Leon Monroe set up Bellaire's first chair in 1936. Old-timers say that after
gambling away his business in downtown Houston, Monroe traded a haircut to a
man who was willing to haul his chair into the hinterlands of
Bellaire.
Called "Frenchy's," the shop was originally located in a
dollhouse-like building near the old post office. "Frenchy's" still lives on a
sliver of Cedar Street around the corner from Starbucks, operated by a barber
who worked for Monroe in 1947.
In 1952,
Monroe opened a second shop, now Bebe's. He called it "Leon's," apparently
believing different names would thwart competition. It didn't. A fella from
Arkansas set up shop across from "Leon's" where the Minute Man Press now
operates.
Although a shave and a haircut are no longer two bits at
Bebe's, 15 bucks still gets a nice coiffure. In fact, Bebe's, Frenchy's,
Ralph's Barber on Cedar and Bellaire's Original Barbershop in the Triangle
service customers from all over metro-Houston, drawn as much by price as
nostalgia: quality cuts are half the cost of "styling."
Then
there's that inescapable allure. Barbershops are quiet refuges for men,
regardless of the barber's gender--a place for one-on-one talk about
sports or 'bidness' or bragging on a son who sits waiting for his cut,
mesmerized by last year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
Copyright 2006 by David Falloure
