Editor’s note: This column was written in 2011 by Publisher Emeritus Jerry Robinson.

By Jerry Robinson

Well. i got  a haircut  today.

Nick the  barber was walking in front of his  shop yesterday holding up a sign which read' NO HAIRCUT, NO NICK. '

I hated the thought of  him starving  to death so I  hired him again this  month.

I have  been holding off till ex Sheriff  Reichert  runs for  Governor next  election. He has a haircut that  got him elected as U.S.  Representative and he  is  planning to ride  that haircut all the way to the White House.I am not  running.

Nick has been cutting  hair our here for  a long  time, He had a shop at the West  Seattle Junction, then he  moved  to White Center and has  been in Burien across the  street from Sal's Deli  on 6th Ave.since 1979 

Nick doesn't promise to get me elected to anything but he does agree to be  careful not to scar up my skull. So far  after about  thirty years he has yet to put a Nick in my scalp.

My Dad was my only  barber tilI I was 12 and he had scissors and clippers that he also used on my dog Fritzy.

Dad  also had  a leather razor strop.Not strap. He used  it sharpen his  straight edge razor  that was about  six inches  long  with  a really sharp blade. A wicked  looking  thing that he  shaved himself with . The  strop he also used  as a  weapon for  delivering stinging raps on obstreperous boys. I never felt it  but  my big brother did a few  times. 

We had a huge old tub in our only bathroom. Besides Dad's shaving  stuff the room had  a towel rack and a toilet.

All ten kids (five girls and  four  boys (it would have been five boys but a little brother only lived  six months) and  Saturday night was set aside  for big brother Russell and I to share the suds once a week whether we  needed it or not .

We'd  fill the tub with  about 5 inches of  tepid water  and while it was rising  we always  soaped up the slip and slide  rim  and took turns  pushing  each]  other from one end to the other. 

One night  Russ gave me a  hefty shove  and I  whizzed around  the track for a world  record and hit my forehead on the hot water  tap.

Naturally, I howled like I had a broken skull and before  Russell  could stuff a wash cloth in my mouth  Dad burst  into the  door and grabbed  his razor strop and cracked  poor Russell's  butt  a couple of times.

Russell took it grimly and refused  to wail. I felt guilty and slid under the  water hoping nobody would notice me.

I guess Nick doesn't have  a strop. At least I have never  seen one.I hope  not. I would hate  to have  him whack me if I bellowed about scissors  that always  pull hard  when the tips of the  blades  are not sharp.

Sometimes Dad  would  give  us pig  shaves and we once had  a baby pig that  the  guys at the hog  ranch gave my brother  Albert because  they discovered  it  had no  B=M hole and 

Albert came home from the hog ranch and put it under the  house in a cubby hole  and went in to feed it  and kneeled on it and it made an awful mess and  Albert had  to bury it.

So I know what  a shaved pig looks  like.

I know this story has nothing to do with pig shaves or haircuts but I thoughI would share it.

I wonder if Nick does pig  shaves.