Re: Market St. People/summer buzz cuts

04/21/06 - posted by jb

While I recall the schlitzi being bantered about, I never recall it formally being cited as one of the integral men's haircuts displayed on the black and white photo chart that hung in every barbershop of my youth. I do remember my first "flat-top with fenders" created by a barber at Boyes Hot Springs who had a handlebar mustache that curled into perfect circles on either side. Writing now, I can feel the warmth of the shaving cream that flowed from the mysterious black box rather than a cold can and the medieval scrape of the razor...don't even think about moving least you be circumsized at the neck and spend the rest of your life looking like Bazooka Joe. These were all rights of passage for the Summer, where the aromoa of Butchwax and Dixie Peach palmade permiated every swimming hole, roller rink and arcade.

We'd return home from Sonoma in time for the new school year and as always, the nice weather would follow us for a week or two and draw us down to Thornton Beach each afternoon. Beach sand and Butchwax was a leathal combination and soon, that flat top was outgrown and my style returned to the regular man's haricut, 3rd down on the chart, where it remainds to this moment, save a brief departure to a lunatic fringe in the late 60's and a schlitzi which I received as a welcoming gift to Ft. Ord in 1969. Amazing how that buzz cut knocked at least 3 feet off the cholos and vatos from East LA...befittingly, it was called "the old equalizer."

Since I can now spit and hit it, I often remember Ft. Ord and consider getting a schlitzi and sporting a uniform...It sure would give me more time in the morning to write and goof around.