Lloyd Stokes was a town fixture for many years until his death. He was the Pastor of the Wallins Methodist Church on Back Street. But the thing which distinguished him even more than that was that he was a one-armed barber. He lost his arm when he was a young man, but adapted tools that allowed him to cut hair. Someone told me that Lloyd had been mentioned in "Ripley's Believe It or Not." The barbershop was originally located in downtown Wallins. Lloyd and his Father staffed it. The senior Mr. Stokes was getting on in years.
Once my Mom sent me to the barbershop with the instruction to wait for the younger Mr. Stokes to cut my hair. As fate would have it, the first chair that became available belonged to the elder Mr. Stokes. When he asked me to climb into the chair, I responded, "My Mom told me not to let you cut my hair because you are old and can't see, and you gap hair." Patrons of the barbershop and Lloyd himself got a huge laugh out of this. Needless to say, my Mom was embarrassed. The moral of this story is don't tell your kids anything you don't want them to repeat.
My brother Ronnie was terrified of getting his hair cut. Mom speculated that when he got his first haircut he had a bad experience with the clippers. Remember the old hand clippers? I remember that they would sometimes pinch, even drawing blood.This created a situation where the dreaded word, "Haircut," was never spoken aloud in our house. Mom would eventually ask me to take him to the barbershop for his haircut. I usually found a way to trick him into getting his haircut. But after a few times, he knew all the tricks I employed. Once he played along with me until we got to the barbershop door. He then broke from me and ran all the way back to town before I caught up with him. By this time the barbershop was located on Front Street across from Ross Booth's house.
Haircut time for Ronnie also meant entertainment for anyone in the vicinity of the barbershop. When it was observed by townsfolk that a haircut for Ronnie was imminent, a crowd of onlookers would grow. In order for Lloyd Stokes to attempt the job, there also needed to be someone to assist me in holding him down in the chair. This was a thankless job, as Ronnie would kick and scream to high heaven. It was hard to find volunteers who had not had the pleasure previously. Those who had, learned to find an excuse to decline.
My haircuts as I remember were not works of art. In those days, they were mostly Burrs and Flattops. Haircuts had to last for awhile. A boy generally needed a style that was low maintenance. Hair dryers and hair sprays were not in vogue in those days. For a Flattop, you needed some Vaseline or maybe some Royal Crown pomade to keep it standing up. I remember one photo in particular taken when I was wearing a flattop. It looked like I had a pound of grease on my hair. For a Burr, it was handsfree maintenance. Nothing else needed.
In reality, it would have been better for me if I could have worn my hair longer to hide my ears. Richard Carmichael, a classmate of mine, use to say that I looked like a taxicab going down the street with both doors open. I took a lot of teasing because my ears stuck out. Long hair for boys or men was not fashionable in those days, so I had to suffer these insults. I just tried to return the favor by finding some fault with them. So it is with young boys.
Like many of the barbershops in the small coal-mining towns of Southeastern Kentucky was the bath house in the rear of Lloyd Stokes' shop. It was used by a lot of the local coal miners. They came in all black with coal dust. They would shower and change into clothes that they kept in lockers. They would come in the back door, but would generally exit out through the front. This allowed a cloud of steam to enter the barbershop. I'm not sure what it cost, but I seem to remember that it cost 25 cents for the shower which included a clean towel.
Bill Blanton, another classmate of mine, later became the town barber. I am sorry to say that Bill recently passed away. We did get to see him shortly before his death at the 40th anniversary of our graduation in 2004. He ran the same shop that belonged to Lloyd Stokes. I'm not for sure if Wallins even has a barber now. In a way that is sad. A lot of socializing takes place in a barbershop. You don't necessarily have to be getting a haircut to stop by. It is a gathering place in a small town. Especially when you have so many bigger than life characters.
