A cut above

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- It’s late in the morning at a barber shop on 32nd

Street, and the talk is of Korea.

The man having his hair cut, Huntington Beach resident B.B.

Yarborough, served in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion. Another customer,

waiting contentedly for his turn under the shears, spent some of the war

working at the Marine Corps cold weather training facility at Pickle

Meadows.

And the barber, 69-year-old Newport Beach resident Chuck Russell, did

a turn in the Marines as well: Item Company, 5th Regiment.

“We were on the same hill together in Korea,” Russell tells

Yarborough. “Most of the time, you guys were on our right flank, weren’t

you?”

“We were cleaning up your mess,” Yarborough says.

Neither Yarborough nor the other customer, Newport Beach resident Bob

Knox, actually has a great deal of hair to cut. The tops of their heads

are proud, empty summits -- pink domes rimmed with a delicate fringe of

silver.

But getting a trim is only part of the point at Russell’s shop.

Talking the talk while the scissors snip away is essential to the

experience.

Talk about war, about women, about money, about children. Talk about

the miscellaneous details that make up a man’s life.

Going to Chuck’s Barber Shop is a little like visiting a good

therapist, except that he charges only $12 for a session and he does your

sideburns while he listens.

Russell has been cutting hair in the same location for almost 21

years, mildly snipping at bangs and cowlicks in a shop where the walls

are lined with propellers, tortoise shells, ropes and buoys.

The look of the shop is decidedly old-time: copies of the Marine Corps

magazine “Leatherneck” vie with well-thumbed issues of “Playboy” and

“Esquire” on the counter top by the door. Bottles of Bay Rum and cans of

Barbasol are lined up along the mirrors that cover one wall.

But it’s the presence of Russell, as multipurpose confessor, counselor

and consultant, that elevates the shop above the merely quaint.

Russell knows how to talk to his customers, and he knows how to

listen.

“Certain people, you can tell what you can get away with,” in

conversation, he says. “Some of them, you just barely skim the surface.

“Certain people you can discuss politics with; certain people you can

discuss religion. And certain people you don’t touch either subject,

because you really get into a war.”

Russell knows how deep to go, guiding the conversation with the

intuitive sense of a man whose career depends on the ability to cut just

enough, and never too much.

He swings Yarborough around in the chair and holds up a hand mirror so

the customer can inspect his neckline.

“That’s fine, Chuck,” Yarborough says. “As long as I look a little

more presentable.”

He smiles, glancing at the silver survivors remaining on his scalp.

“He’s the best barber in the world. I used to have a full head of hair!”