In 47 years of cutting hair, probably the worst moment of all was when a customer's ear fell off.
"I bent the ear forward a bit to clip the hairline behind it, and the whole ear fell on the floor," said Jim Alm, Two Harbors' last barber.
Minutes later, after assuring himself that he wouldn't have a heart attack or a lawsuit on his hands, Alm bent down to retrieve what was a plastic replacement for the ear that had been shot off when the customer was in the military.
On Dec. 31, Alm walked out of his shop on Seventh Street for the last time, leaving a lot of loyal customers wondering where they'll get their next haircut. Earlier in the week, he sat in a comfy chair in his home and reminisced,
sprinkling his memories with funny stories.
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"Barbering is the world's second-
oldest profession," he said, following that statement with a wide grin. Then he tossed in his proof: "When they were excavating in the pyramids, they found a straight-edge razor."
Alm wasn't always a barber. He worked for 12 years on the railroad, but when it began cutting back in the 1950s, he decided he needed a more reliable career. He figured barbering would allow him to work days, be off on the weekends and even work out of his home if he chose to.
In 1964, after graduating from barber school and finishing his apprenticeship, he came to Two Harbors and worked for Al Grams in the building on First Avenue where Hair Designs is now. In 1969, he moved to second-chair position with Stanley Loushin in the Gould's Jewelry building, where he spent the rest of his barbering years. Eventually, he bought out Loushin and ran a one-man shop.
"I always made a good income -- but that boils down to my faithful customers," he said. He boasts of cutting hair for five generations of men in at least two local families, and of cutting hair on everyone from the lowliest worker to the wealthy people at Encampment Forest.
"Some of my summer customers were people with names like Pillsbury, Kellogg, Kraft -- all so smart. They talked about things like opera. I ended up highly educated," he said, then grinned at the idea.
But he also learned about the trades. He cut the hair of carpenters, plumbers and electricians and never hesitated to ask how to complete his own projects at home.
Like the image of most barbershops, the customers arrived to wait in line and visit with each other. Alm had some rules, though. No swearing was allowed, for one thing. He calls cursing "a sign of a low vocabulary." He didn't allow gossip, either. And following the suggestion he learned in barber school, Alm never discussed religion or politics.
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"If my customers wanted to talk about those things, I just nodded," he said.
Things have changed in barbering over the years. In the early days, men arrived with hair that was "greasy, oily and stank of sweat," Alm said.
"Now all my customers are clean -- squeaky clean." Alm even discontinued hair washings in later years.
Men now wait longer between haircuts, something Alm said began to happen when the Beatles showed up on the scene. That's also when any kind of hairstyle became acceptable, and the days of fad styles -- like duck tails and flat tops -- gradually faded away, as did the shelves of hair tonic like Lilac and Sheba.
With the business closing, Alm's son intends to take the barber chair for himself -- "Why, I don't know," Alm said -- and his daughter wants the waiting chairs where lines of men once sat for their turn. A beautician in town is talking about moving her business into the space, bringing women into the domain once reserved exclusively for men.
