CARLTON FLETCHER: Wonder of wonders: I have a barber

Get to the barber shop and get that hair cut off your head.

— The Beatles

Something I never thought I’d hear myself say: I’ve got a barber.

Yep, this guy whose hair “style” has been described — jokingly, I hope — as the results of a bad weed whacker incident has a professional barber who regularly cuts his hair.

(Note: It should be noted that said barber usually comments, “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you that I forgot what it looks like up under that tangled mess” when I make my way to his shop. I think he’s only joking, too.)

The thing about getting a proper haircut has always been something of an issue for me. My brother Donny and I wanted so desperately to let our hair grow longer — in the style of our musical heroes like The Beatles — when we were younger, but our dad, a working man and former military, was having none of that. When our hair got long enough to start touching our ears, we’d head to the barber shop in downtown Ocilla.

I remember sitting in the shop, waiting my turn and dreading when the barber would say, “Who’s next?” and look my way. When I was very young, I just sat there and let him cut away. The “style” he went with was pretty much cut it all off except a little on the top and then comb the front back in this little flip that he’d lacquer into place with some kind of goop. We, of course, couldn’t wait to get out of there and get that flip settled down at least.

As we got older, I remember timidly telling the barber, “Just trim a little off the sides.” Didn’t matter. When we walked out, it was all gone on the sides and back, a little on top and that same Dennis the Menace flip.

When I was a sophomore football player at Irwin County High, though, I got into a conversation with one of the school’s cheerleaders — Lydia Clayton, who had maybe the sweetest voice of any girl ever — and it came up during the conversation that she cut hair. I asked — timidly, of course, because I was so shy around females … especially ones who looked and sounded like Lydia Clayton — if she might cut my hair.

She did. I loved it. And after that, I paid for exactly two haircuts until I accidentally stumbled into Mr. Robert Taylor’s Lake Park Styling Shop on Dawson Road.

In the interim 44 years, my hair — which was pretty much a white-boy Afro until Gary Owens (a crazy story … she was a girl I was dating) cut it all off one memorable day — has been cut by any number of people. Girlfriends, friends, friends’ wives, my 9-year-old daughter once (she also braided it once to comic effect), my wife and even people I’d just met who thought it would be a neat challenge.

Oh, and up until I happened into Mr. Robert’s shop, I’d usually just cut it myself.

My stock answer when people commented about the “unusual” do I might be sporting after a particularly bad — usually self-inflicted — haircut: When you’re ugly, it doesn’t really matter. (I may have that put on the coffee can they put my ashes in before dumping them on some back road.)

So I had a rare day off last year (at a time when such a thing as days off existed), and as fate would have it I actually had about 30 bucks in expendable income. I called the lady who had cut my hair — at my wife’s insistence — before my daughter Jordan’s wedding, but she wasn’t available. I was just driving around, running a couple of errands, when I saw the barber pole outside Lake Park Styling. I said “What the heck” and went inside.

First thing I noticed was that Mr. Robert, who’s been at his profession for decades, is exactly what you expect a barber to be. He’s a professional, a throwback to the days when men went to barber shops instead of beauty salons and got their hair cut instead of styled. I loved getting his views on issues as he worked, and — best of all — when I left with a fresh haircut I didn’t cringe when I looked in the mirror.

I went back a second time a few weeks later (time, money), and I’ve gone back a few more times since. I knew I was doing the right thing when my 15-year-old gave me a grudging “Not bad” after the last haircut. To me, that was about as high as praise comes.

Now I may end up cutting my own hair again (time, money) out of necessity, but unless it’s an emergency, I’m trusting this mop to Robert Taylor. After all, he’s my barber.