Ever have something happen in your past that many years later all of a sudden you figure out what was really going on? Me too.
For example, as a kid I took guitar lessons. My guitar teacher suggested I try drums. I thought he was complimenting me on my rhythm, Many years later I realized what he really meant was I was hopeless on guitar (which I was).
This isn’t about my lack of musical ability, but it is about something that dawned on me almost 60 years later.
As a kid I have early memories of visiting our grandparents who lived in a small town about a 40 minute drive from our home, the town where both my parents grew up. I can still picture the main street. Once you drove over the single lane bridge which spanned the creek, there was the bank, a general store, a bait shop with a gas pump, the post office and a barber shop.
My Grandfather ran the general store and was well liked, so much so that he was elected Reeve of the Township way back in the day when being a politician was a noble profession. And it was a dry Township, as in no booze sold or served within Township lines. I suspect the dryness was in part due to my Grandmother’s open disdain for the devil’s drink. This was when temperance* was about abstaining and not about climate change.
I remember whenever my grandparents were coming out to the cottage my father would pack up any beer in the fridge and store it under the bed. Grandmother would always nonchalantly inspect the cottage fridge upon arrival. After cordial goodbyes (with no cordials beforehand) the fridge would be restocked.
What I also remember is every time we would visit my grandparents, my Grandfather would say “That kid needs a haircut”. The Beatles were popular back then but I was no mop top, but I wasn’t a crop top either.
But it didn’t seem to matter how long or short my hair was, the long and short of it was I was getting a haircut.
My Dad would take me to the one chair barbershop on main street, with the standard red white and blue barber pole out front. I would sit in that chair and the barber would crank it up to the right height and the scissors would start snipping. Getting my mop chopped by the slow and steady hand of an old school country coiffure.
Many years later on a trip to that town my Dad said to me “Don’t tell your mother”. This was back when people could keep a secret, there was no social media and phones had cranks or those new-fangled rotary dials, but no cameras, if you can picture that! I also knew the ramifications of not following the old man’s instructions, so I said “Sure, no problem”. And off we went to the barber shop. But not for a haircut.
He took me through a couple of doors at the back and into the backroom where there was a pool table and a makeshift bar. The guy behind the bar greeted Dad by name which I thought was very sociable of him. It was a real speakeasy. Not the kind you see in The Great Gatsby, but one that a small town smoky backroom bar in a dry Township might have.
What I remember most about it were the spittoons which I thought were pretty nasty and a couple of old timers spitting skyward with impressive accuracy to ring the bell on those grotesque urns.
Now you may be wondering what dawned on me all these years later. First of all, my Grandfather must have been well aware of this clandestine cocktail pool and pint establishment, and as Reeve he was also aware that it would have been illegal in a dry township. Then there were all those slow as molasses in January and a number of other months haircuts that enabled my Father to shoot a game of pool and have a shot or two at the same time. Behind the eight ball while downing a highball.
As I thought about writing this it all started to come together for me. My grandfather providing an excuse and cover for my Dad to catch up with a few old buddies and have a drink or two and a few of those unfiltered roll your owns (tobacco back then). Meanwhile his son, that being yours truly, was unaware in the barber chair. Unassuming with scissors looming, clueless beneath the clippers. The old man into the Budweiser and my Mother and his Mother none the wiser.
Then I got to thinking about how crafty the old man was, and how many stories I told him that he probably saw right through right away, because he had been there and done that. A sobering thought, figuratively, not literally.
Of course, this is just an off the wall conspiracy theory, no facts to corroborate or substantiate. Dad’s been gone a long time now so he can’t confirm or deny. My mother is alive and well at 95 but I’m certainly not going to ask her. I don’t know what would be worse, her finding out or her being in on it all along!
*Editor’s Comment: Prohibition periods in Canada varied depending on municipal, county and provincial bans on alcohol. The National prohibition from 1918 to 1920 was a temporary war time measure. Most provinces repealed their bans in the 1920s although alcohol was illegal in Prince Edward Island from 1901 to 1948. Ontario’s prohibition was from 1916 to 1927. There are still some dry communities in Canada.
Great story Roy 😊🍺
Thank you
Thanks Oliver, it sounds stranger than fiction, unless you’re old enough to remember those days.