Jim’s Barber Shop

Let’s get it straight from the start: you usually don’t get your best haircut here. But it doesn’t matter. Jim’s personality and the good time you spend there makes up for not-​always-​perfect haircuts. Although in my eyes, the haircut I get is totally fine, every time I come back from Jim’s, my wife, looking at the back of my head which is a little uneven, tells me «It was the last time you went to Jim. Next time I’ll drag you to my own stylist!» But every «next time» I go there and the story repeats again!
It’s a small barber shop on Franklin Ave. with a barber’s pole, a few seats for waiting and lots of magazines (including men’s magazines) to page through. Jim mostly does men’s hair. Only if it’s a simple thing, he accepts to do women’s hair. During the usual hours, you should expect one or two customers waiting ahead of you. You could keep yourself busy with reading magazines or listening to conversation between Jim and the customer getting a haircut.
Jim, whose father was also a barber, knows many of his customers by name. Some of them have been his customers for decades. He knows the neighborhood very well too and is quite popular in the neighborhood. Last year when he had a stroke, many in the neighborhood sent him get-​well wishes.
Jim is also a great storyteller. Like old-​fashioned storytellers, he has a huge depository of stories inspired by real life experience. They’re not all his. They may be stories other customers tell him when he cut their hair. But, he well knows the art of transmitting the counsels of those stories to other people. Sitting on the chair, you feel the time passes very quickly.