Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. – Luke 12:7

“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” – Garrison Keillor, A prairie Home Companion

So here I am in Tarboro, continuing to finesse my small town experience.

Last week it was the sophistication of Mozart in the parlor; every week it is the spiritual intimacy and deep community of Presbyterian worship in the historic district; this week it was my first classic barbershop experience since I was a child at Mr. Cook’s on Grace Hill in Folkestone in the UK.

“What is that?” I’d ask when Mr. Cook sprayed my hair, laying down his scissors to pick up his mysterious concoction (in a glass flask with a black rubber bulb attached that he squeezed to make it spray). “Dragon’s Blood,” he’d always say, putting it away with great ceremony as if it was something rare and precious.

Now all I have to do is exit our front porch, stroll down James Street, walk by the courthouse and through the Town Square, open the door to City Barber Shop, and take my place with the other folk waiting for our turn on one of the chairs – and of course we have been in town long enough now that I knew one of them. And now – being a barber’s shop – I know them all!

There is no such thing as rushing in an old-time Barber’s Shop. Bobby Williams and his son Anthony don’t waste time – there’s maybe a thirty-second pause before the next person sits in a chair – but they are absolutely not in a hurry.

Bobby has been cutting hair in Tarboro more than fifty years; he is skilled, friendly, easy to talk with, reasonable, and very much a Tarboro institution. I doubt my rapidly thinning mane is going to require much more attention while we’re here… but I may well visit Mr. Williams and his scissors a few more times, just to enjoy the chat.

One more slice of Americana Pie. Right there on Main Street.

This is Derek Maul, reporting from Tarboro where (and with apologies to Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon) all the women are sophisticated, all the men are self-assured, and all the children are going on to earn PhD’s before returning one day to renovate the entire town...

Well, we can dream – DEREK