COSMETOLOGIST PREFERS BARBERING

JACKSON -- The talk is about farming, hunting and fishing. Motor Trend and Sport magazines are in the rack. The music on the radio is country.

This is a disappearing piece of Americana, an old-fashioned barbershop, but the barber's name is Paula. And a sign on the wall reads: "Give a man an inch and he thinks he is a ruler."

Paula Drum owns and operates the Jackson Family Barbershop at 127 W. Main St.

When she bought the shop a year ago, Drum inherited many male patrons who have been coming to the barbershop at various locations under different names since they were little boys.

It started out as the Hoffmeister Barbershop sometime around the turn of the century. Besides the Hoffmeister family, Don Rees, Ben Roberts, Virgil Henry and Larry Harris have been owners prior to Drum. It has been a traditional gathering spot for men.

"We've got three or four who come in and sit and talk whether they get a haircut or not," Drum says. She has thought about getting them a card table.

Sometimes men do a double-take when they walk in the small, three-chair shop and see her.

"One man came in and said, 'Are you a barber?' I said, I am today.

"... You've got to have a sense of humor," Drum said. "If you don't you're not going to make it."

Drum actually is a licensed cosmetologist who got out of the salon business because the chemicals she had to use were hard on her hands and she found the work stressful. She quit cutting hair for a while and tried other jobs until the previous owner, Larry Harris, asked her to work for him 5 1/2 years ago.

She didn't know how to use clippers when she started out. "It was on-the-job training," she said.

But she liked the laid-back atmosphere. When she bought the shop she had to get two different kinds of licenses -- one as a barbershop, another as a beauty shop. Though some of Drum's patrons are female, you can't get a permanent at her shop or a style and set, you can't get a dye job or a weave, you can't get a shampoo. You can't even get an appointment. The business is walk-in only.

Unlike the barbershops of yore, you can't even get a shave. You can get a haircut.

A male haircut is $7, a female haircut is $9 (because they usually have more hair to work with and "they're a little bit more particular," Drum says), and seniors can get a haircut for $6.

Drum is divorced and has two daughters, Sarah, 11, and Stacy, 10, who get their hair cut by mom. "They feel deprived they can't go to a beauty shop. I told them when they get out and earn their own money they can," she says.

Three days a week, former owner Don Rees' wife, Juanita, also cuts hair in the shop. But business is so good she's looking for another barber -- male or female.

She doesn't miss the salon atmosphere.

"Juanita and I do enough girl talk," Drum says.

And there is one more advantage to cutting men's hair instead of women's, Drum says.

"They're better tippers."