Hair cuts, Chewin gum on the bed post, Washing dishes.

When we were kids we always got our haircuts at Jap Martins barber shop, Under the North pool hall. It cost ten cents and he usually gave kids a candy stick. I remember trying to get the barber to make my hair white like my friend A.J's. Once he dumped talcum powder on it to try to make me happy. I dont know why they called him Jap but they didn't lock him up during the war so I'm pretty sure he was an American. At that time I had a friend on our block that I played with a lot. I was over to his house one day when his Mom was giving him a haircut. She asked me if I wanted her to cut my hair. I said sure. That was one of my first bad decisions. I didn't realize the clippers she had were hand operated. She cut some of my hair and pulled out the rest. I dont remember how it looked but I know my mom wasn't impressed. My friend Lyle didn't know that real barbers had electric clippers. Lyle had a younger sister named Darlene. They would fight all the time over anything. One day he was complaining to his mom that Darlene had stolen his gum off his bedpost. That gum had been chewed for at least a week before she stole it. It couldn't have had any flavor left but he was mad just the same. Lyle and I would go swimming every day but he couldn't go till they had the dishes done. They would fight over whose turn it was to wash or dry for what seemed like hours. They spent a lot less time actually doing the work than they did argueing. If their dad was home he would sit in his big chair and occasionally holler at them to pipe down and get busy. Otherwise he never had much to say, just sat in the chair and listened to the radio. They never had a telephone. If his mom needed to call someone she would always ask my mom if she could use ours. She was a nice lady and was a great baker. The best thing Lyle ever did was take over my paper route. It must have been when I went away to school. I have a lot of good memories about those times. The haircut wasn't one of them.