By REY FLORES
With the American Family Association’s petition against Target’s transgender-friendly bathroom policy, and with North Carolina’s court fight to defend its pro-family restroom legislation, I am reminded of a few places in our communities that are still somewhat sacred to our traditional values.
I just took my four young sons to get their bimonthly haircuts at our favorite barber shop in historic downtown Fredericksburg, Va. Pelletier’s Barber Shop has been in business for a few decades now and main barber Joe Maisonneuve is our family barber.
Joe is a terrific personality who still sports an Elvis-like pompadour and who knows my boys’ heads like the back of his hand. Since we started going to Joe for our haircuts, we have never been disappointed. Every time I come back home after a visit to Pelletier’s Barber Shop, my wife falls in love all over again with her handsome sons in their fresh new haircuts.
Barber shops like Pelletier’s are becoming the last vestiges of a much simpler time in our society when men were men, women were women and we all liked it that way. A barber shop was the one place that grandfathers, fathers, and sons frequented to become gentlemen again.
Men hung out with other men to talk about sports, hunting, fishing, politics, and what-not. It was a place of community where we could let go of our worries for a little bit and come out of there looking and feeling just a little better.
Barber shops eventually became fewer as hair salon franchises started popping up across America in the mid-1970s. These chain franchises offered discount haircuts by a rotating staff of stylists who would change almost every time you visited them.
As families disintegrated for a number of reasons like divorce, fatherless families, and single motherhood, the tradition of a father taking his son for a visit to the barber shop became a thing of the past. It became something out of an old Norman Rockwell illustration on the cover of an old rumpled copy of The Saturday Evening Post.
Seeing that it is getting harder and harder to protect my sons from public displays of homosexuality all around us, I hold on tightly and dearly to something as simple as a visit to the barber shop.
In the past few years, I have attempted to shield my son from a lesbian couple kissing in the stands at a baseball game and two men holding hands at the local zoo.
Places and events once considered family-friendly are now playgrounds for homosexuals who like to go out of their way to display their affections within view of our children.
Added to that, stores and other institutions are endangering women and children with their vile transgendered bathroom policies.
As if we didn’t expect such disastrous results from such a blockheaded policy, there have already been incidents of miscreants attempting to photograph women and girls in dressing rooms and bathrooms — yet these twisted policies remain.
(See LifeSiteNews.com of May 10 for this story: “Texas police seeking man who videotaped girl in Target changing room.”)
Maybe the outcry from organizations like the American Life Association will turn things around, but I doubt it.
In the face of all this, I maintain that the barber shop is a rarity which we should preserve as much as possible. If there are any young people still undecided about what career path to choose, please let me suggest to you young men out there that running a traditional old-school barber shop may be just the thing for you.
And don’t think it isn’t a lucrative gig because in the 40 minutes it took for Joe to cut my four sons’ hair, he made ten bucks a head plus a tip. Doing that all day while shooting the breeze, Joe is an important member of our society who keeps a valued tradition in our communities alive and well.
Like the old neighborhoods where our parishes were both beacon and anchor, we also had the corner grocer who gave us the best groceries, the local tavern where men could also unwind after a long day at work, and, of course, the barber shop.
When I was growing up, my mom would take me to the beauty salon where they did her hair and, sure, I got a nice haircut, but I was in an environment obviously designed for women. Later on my dad would take me to his barber, an elderly Jewish gentleman.
I’ll say it again: In an age of so-called transgender bathrooms, the barber shop remains a sacred space where fathers and sons can share quality time together without being exposed to the societal garbage that litters our world today.
Support your local barber and barber shop.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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