"The View from the Plank"

While visiting one of those unisex barber shops that dot our fair town, I watched the “stylist’ struggle to reach the head of the young occupant in her chair.  I immediately thought that she needed a “barber’s plank”.  My mind instantly raced back to the mid-to-late 1960’s and my own place in the barber’s chair in Guthrie, KY.

 Mr. Warren Pritchett was the only game in town when it came to barber shops in Guthrie.  As a young lad, I spent many a day hearing yarns, fables, and out right fibs in Mr. Pritchett’s chair.  A certain “rite of passage” revolved around the chair in Mr. Pritchett’s shop.  For those of us of lesser stature, he would pump the chair as high as he could and if you still weren’t high enough he would lay a board across the arms of the chair.  The very idea of the plank being there meant, in my eyes, that I didn’t measure up to the others in the room.  I was the little fellow.  I was to be seen and not heard. But the view from “the plank” was one that I wouldn’t soon forget. 

Being on the plank afford us “little fellas” the opportunities to learn many important life lessons.  Some of which included but aren’t limited to: 

•   If a horse is bleeding anywhere on its body, you can stop the bleeding by tying a rope around its tail.  (I so badly wanted to raise my hand and ask why anyone would want to stand behind a bleeding horse and risk getting kicked in the head; but, I didn’t).

• If you get chewing gum in your hair you can remove it by rubbing peanut butter on it. 

Great memories were made on Saturdays during the fall and winter month as we “pulled” for the University of Kentucky and whoever was playing the University of Tennessee in football and basketball.  Mr. Pritchett always had the games playing on the radio and we would listen to the mesmerizing melodious voice of Cawood Ledford “The Voice of the Kentucky Wildcats” for over 35 years.

The most memorable periods on “the plank” were the summer months.  During these times, I heard many, many, many, fishing tales.  Kentucky and Barkley Lakes combined couldn’t hold the number of fish that were caught by the gentlemen who frequent Mr. Pritchett’s shop.  As I was riding my bicycle delivering The Grit newspaper, I realized Mr. Pritchett was alone in the shop.   I just had to seize this unique opportunity. While slipping in the door, I steeled my spine and asked Mr. Pritchett the all important question that burned in my heart, mind and soul. Slowly I stammered, “Mr. Pritchett will you tell me where you catch all those fish?” He hesitated and thought hard and then said, “Yes.”
I nearly leaped for joy at my unexpected good fortune.  With great deliberation he said, “I mostly catch them in the mouth.  Sometimes I catch them in the gills but mostly I catch them in the mouth.”

As my life has become more and more cloudy with the travails of life, I am sure that the view has never been as clear as when I sat on the plank.