Longtime Fort Wayne barbers to hang up clippers

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) -- After a combined 112 years as barbers, Don Conrad and Richard Michael say they'll hang up their clippers Friday. The shop that bears Conrad's name will close after more than 49 years.

Longtime customers have been saying their farewells, wishing Conrad a happy retirement and wondering where to find a new barber.

Conrad and Michael first agreed that they would retire by year's end, with Michael leaving first. Then they talked about the chore of posting a "Closed" sign on the Saturday before Labor Day, to be followed by two more retirement signs.

Conrad said he asked Michael, "Do you just want to write `Retired'?"

"And he said, `That works for me,"' Conrad told The News-Sentinel (http://bit.ly/NwKOYi ).

Conrad began cutting hair at the Fort Wayne YMCA in the fall of 1957. After three other stops, he opened his south-side shop in April 1963. Michael joined Conrad's shop 12 years ago, after 45 years at other shops.

"So you're finally giving it up, huh, Don?" Leonard Relue asked Conrad last week, as he waited his turn for his a haircut and beard trim. "It's true," Conrad said. He said he and his wife, Marilyn, plan to travel. He also plans to fish and golf.

Michael said he and wife, Sarah Jane, look forward to visiting their family.

Relue said Conrad has been his barber, at different shops, since 1959. "I haven't had any complaints," Relue said.

Frank Robinson said he was just driving by, looking for a barber, when he stopped at the shop 10 or 12 years ago. "I just kept coming back," he said.

Robinson said a new barber will be hard to find. "You tell them you want a `50s haircut and they don't know what you're talking about," he said.

Conrad's shop looked somewhat sparse last week, after a shelf of collector beer cans had been packed away. Other souvenirs still filled the walls. His Central High School car plate separated a Purdue University car plate from an Indiana University wall clock. Those emblems have given rise to some lively conversation over the years, said Conrad, adding that he's on the IU side.

"When my grandson was about 3 or 4 years old, I carved IU initials in the back of his hair," he said.

Conrad graduated from Central in 1951 and served in the Navy during the Korean Conflict.

Like many of his friends, he returned to Fort Wayne and applied at the large manufacturers. They turned him down, he said, because of his size, about 110 pounds. "I don't think they could get away with that today," he said.

So he attended barber college under the G.I. Bill, enrolling in1957. "I always thought it was ironic that I started on April Fools' Day," he said.

He welcomed the help of the local barbers' society, which was both a business league and a social outlet. The society arranged classes for new styles, he said. "There were some barbers who didn't understand the hair of the `70s and the Beatles and all that," he said. "I was one of them."

Michael said his barber career followed stints with the railroad and trucking. "My dad was a barber," he said. "Back in the `50s, things were a little tough and I was thinking about what to do that wasn't going to be automated. Dad said, "You'll always have a paycheck if you work with your hands."'

Conrad resisted some of the changes in the industry, which largely abandoned razor shaves because of concern about possible HIV exposure from cuts. His clients still can get a haircut and a razor shave, at least until Friday.

Unlike the barbershop scenes of TV and movies, in which customers wander in and wait their turns, Conrad said his shop has always operated on appointments. "That's the only way to do it," he said. "If a fellow comes by and I have an open chair, I won't turn him down."

His prices also have changed. "I think I was getting a buck and a half or a quarter. I get $10 (today)," he said. "But that's probably one of the cheapest shops in town."

The wall beside the cash register still contains a supply of custom-printed Don Conrad Barber Shop 2012 calendars. He has kept one calendar from every previous year.

Roger Clark had his final appointment last week at the shop that he has patronized since 1988.

"I've had my hair cut at one other place once in all that time," Clark said.

"What am I going to do for a calendar?" he asked Conrad.

Conrad's lease continues through September, to give him time to remove supplies and souvenirs from the shop.