Big News.
Bruce the Barber, you know, the guy operating out of the shack in Damariscotta’s back parking lot, the guy with the low prices and wry grin, has gone high hat.
After 23 years flying solo, Ole’ Bruce Soule, 62, has taken in another barber. These days his tiny, crowded, uneven and generally cluttered domain is now is a two-chair shop.
Despite the newcomer, Bruce promises to keep his prices the same. For the record, the haircut is still $6 and it is still $1 to trim your beard. For the record, there is no discount for bald guys who still have just a bit of fringe still clinging to their ears. “Six bucks,” said Bruce.
Was it the turn around in the economy? Did a rich uncle die and leave him a fist full of greenbacks? What triggered the move?
“It is my sister’s boy. I sort of promised her… that…” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Bruce has cut hair in Damariscotta ever since he got out of the Army during the Vietnam War. Unlike some current political candidates, Bruce doesn’t claim to have been a hero who dodged bullets as he slogged through the mud outside of Saigon or Hue.
“I was sent to Korea to work on helicopter rotors. It was a hell of a lot better duty than in Vietnam,” he said.
When he got out of the service, the shop was vacant. There had been a fire in the building and the owner offered him a good deal on the rent if he would fix it up.
“The building was originally resting on piers on the waterfront. It was a shipping clerk’s office. Later it was a restaurant and a fish market. It is two or three buildings cobbled together and that is why the floor is uneven,” he said.
Soule said the back parking lot was filled in by the contractors who needed someplace to dump the debris when they blasted the ledge out during construction of the Rt. 1 bypass around the town. They dumped the fill in the water behind the stores and thus, the back parking lot.
Enter Bruce: “I don’t know why in the hell I ever got into this racket,” he said. “I started in 1968 and barbered for a guy down the street. Then I went in the service.”
While in Korea he did some barbering on the side. “I made more money on the side with the clippers than I did with the Army,” he said.
Back to the shop: “It had been burned out and, did I tell you this part already?” he said. “He gave me a good price, $275 a month, and later the women who owned it kept the rent reasonable – I’ll not tell you how much I pay – but the price lets me keep the price low.”
As Ron Appel, a retired airline pilot from Boothbay, sat in the chair, Bruce explained that it is the tips that provide a good living.
“It is always a good idea to tip the guy who has a razor at your throat, don’t you think?” said Bruce. Appel looked at him and nodded his head.
Then Bruce bragged about his prices. “I think my prices are the lowest in Maine. A lot of summer visitors make it a point to come here, and I do about 50 heads a day. Most are good tippers.”
Appel muttered something about how there are no barbers anymore in Boothbay. Just beauty shops, he said.
Any customer who sits in Bruce’s chair will soon get an update on his real passion – racehorses. Soule owns five Standardbred racers, two retired and three active. They are Pacers, horses who race pulling an ultralight cart called a sulkie.
“We started in Scarborough and now we are racing the half mile track in Bangor. We go around twice,” he said.
When pressed, he admits his ponies, “Kick the Mark,” “New York Express” and “Sporty Suzy,” are having a good year. “We have not won, but, we had some seconds (place finishes), and thirds and are making hay money,” he said. “That’s good.”
Like all horse owners, his day starts early, around 5 a.m. when he slogs out to the barn and mucks out the stalls, feeds the horses grain and turns them out to pasture. Then he comes to work, snips hair for nine and a half hours, eating his brown bag lunch sandwich sitting in the chair when he gets a break from the customers.
After he locks up, he goes back home in Waldoboro where he again cleans out the stalls, feeds the horses. It takes a couple of hours.
Getting serious, or as serious as he gets, he revealed some of the tricks of the trade to his nephew and new partner.
“I am on my feet all day and the secret is to change your shoes at least twice a day,” he said.
Bruce’s nephew/partner, Mike Flagg, 34, is an Army veteran who went to Capilo Institute, a cosmetology school in Augusta, to learn his trade.
“I learned all about how to use ‘product’ and how to color hair and all about sanitation,” he said.
Then his uncle interrupted him. “Pretty fancy name, Capilo Institute,” Bruce said. “Kind of rolls off the tongue, like Haaaaah-vard,” he said.
There are no more plain barber colleges in Maine, maybe in much of New England, he didn’t know for sure, Bruce said.
When Mike signed on, Uncle Bruce took him aside and helped him with the basics, explaining stuff that goes on in a barber shop, things like cutting hair.
“He learned a lot in school, but I had to teach him about flat tops and other styles that my customers like,” he said.
“I told him to take his time. It didn’t matter if he took an hour to do a haircut at first. It is more important to do your best. The speed will come.”
One of the things Mike had to learn from Uncle Bruce was that he was working in an old fashioned Barber Shop, not a “Unisex Hair Coifing Parlor/Salon” of some sort.
“I get all the dirty jobs, like sweeping up and other stuff,” Mike said.
“He knows all about gel and hair spray, but we don’t use much of that stuff,” said Bruce. “I sell a little hair tonic, and some other stuff, like Butch Wax (used to prop up a flat top). I explained that is the stuff we used before there was something called gel.”
“You know,” said Bruce the barber turned philosopher, “This is a pretty good racket to be in. You don’t get rich, but if you work hard, you can make a pretty good living.”
Then he turned to Appel his customer and smiled. “You want me to take down those eyebrows?”
Bruce warmed up his scissors and snipped a bit of fur from Appel’s eyebrows, then he turned to greet a customer who just walked in the door.
“I will be right with you. Won’t take a minute here. Have a seat.”
