For most of my life, Clark had a barbershop on Buena Vista Road in a strip mall that seems to no longer exist. It looks like that strip mall was bought out and turned into an O'Reilley Auto Parts (circled in red).
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I've also circled the elevated pedestrian crosswalk nearby that helped orient me in this alien landscape that is no longer the Columbus, Georgia I knew growing up there. I used to take that crosswalk across the street sometimes to play on the playground equipment and in the open field in front of Roschild Middle School. My recollection is that there used to be a McDonald's where the Auto Zone Auto Parts is now.
When I was a child, what is currently a sea of dilapidated blacktop parking was an open dirt field. It was mostly red Georgia clay and assorted other dirt with little in the way of plants. By the time I graduated high school, it was a thriving shopping center.
For a time, someone had some goats in a fenced enclosure in that field, not far from the strip mall where Clark had his barbershop and, at the time, my parents had a shop of their own. When I was stuck at the shop, I would go to the McDonald's for fries or I would go feed the goats or play in the dirt field.
Or I would reload Clark's vending machine or sweep the hair up from the floor when he was busy and couldn't get to it himself. I think he sometimes gave me like a dollar for taking care of those chores for him. Fries were something like 39 cents, so a dollar was real money for a child with nothing better to do, bored out of their mind and looking for ways to pass the time.
They later built the shopping center that seems to currently be in decline. When it was shiny and new, the anchor store ("X") was a Kmart. It's apparently now closed and sits empty, according to to the street view.
Other stores came and went in the strip mall. Clark's was always there, with a yellow school bus parked nearby.
Clark drove a school bus mornings and afternoons and worked as a barber the rest of the time. His barbershop had a vending machine in it that sold cold sodas and his backroom was outfitted with his leatherworking stuff.
Clark made several of my custom leather purses when I was a teen. I fondly remember a large saddlebag-style purse that he dyed blue and carved flowers all over.
Clark gave my firstborn son his first haircut at the age of seven months. My son had long eyelashes and a lot of a hair for a baby and I was tired of everyone asking me how old "she" was.
So I got him a haircut and Clark gave me a certificate commemorating my baby's first haircut that I kept for some years in a file somewhere. And then I dressed my son in a blue sweatsuit with a football on the front of the sweatshirt to try to signal "boy" as much as possible.
Alas, two hours later, someone was cooing about how beautiful my baby was and asking again how old "she" was.
Clark also gave me a haircut when I was fourteen years old. I had started gymnastics and was tired of stepping on my long hair. So I got it cut extremely short so I could do gymanstics without my hair being in the way.
For a time, my parents had their own shop in the same strip mall, two doors down from Clark's Barbershop. I think it was called Uncle Bill's Sewing Shop or something like that. My recollection is "Uncle Bill" was part of the name.
My dad's name was Bill and some folks tacked on the informal honorific "uncle" even though they weren't related to him. That's where the name of the store came form.
Bill was also Clark's first name, which is no doubt why no one in my family ever called Clark by his first name.
I'm guessing he was okay with it at least in part because he had military service behind him. It isn't strange to be called by just your last name in the army.
My dad opened a shop because he wanted to sell and repair sewing machines. I guess he also wanted to be his own boss because he had already sold and repaired sewing machines for some other small businessman, a man named David Reynolds.
My mom wanted to be involved in the business and my mom sews beautifully. So she wanted to do more with the business than just sell and repair sewing machines. She also wanted to sell various sewing supplies, like patterns, thread, lace and cloth.
My parents would drive up to Atlanta to buy bolts of cloth and what not in a borrowed or rented van. I sometimes went with them.
This was before the internet and I guess there wasn't as much in the way of readily available information resources for small businesses. The shop didn't succeed and they closed it down.
The homemade display tables went in our dirt basement. All the leftover sewing patterns, material, thread, lace and what not went in mom's sewing room.
Although my parents didn't succeed with their small business, my mom was actually good at making money herself in an entrepreunial fashion. She took in sewing for years at a time when she was nominally respecting my dad's edict that "no wife of mine will ever work."
That's something he told her when they met. It no doubt sounds terrible out of context, but this was a different era and part of what he was saying was "I'm a good provider."
And he was a good provider. He was a really good provider -- when they met. Then he retired from the army when I was three and never quite adapted to the civilian world and never had a successful post-military second career.
When I was twelve, mom got tired of our finances always being tighter than she liked. So she told dad "You don't make enough money to back that up" and she began officially working instead of quietly taking in sewing while officially "not working."
As a child, I was actually exposed quite a lot to small business, working from home and similar. Clark's Barbershop was not only a cornerstone of my childhood, it was also a good example of how to make a small business work.
He drove a school bus to make sure he had some kind of steady paycheck, but that didn't fill his days. It was very part-time.
So he owned a barberhop as well, but he knew business would fluxuate. There would be slow times when he was sitting around doing nothing.
So he did leatherwork to keep himself constructively busy during the times that he had no customers for his barbershop. He supplemented all of that with income from the vending machine.
I think a lot about that while trying to figure out how to piece together an income of my own in an entrepreunial fashion. I do a little blogging. I do a little freelance writing. I do some resume work.
While trying to figure out what to do today to fill my time constructively with an aim to turn it into money, I sometimes think about Clark's Barbershop and the example he set for me in that regard. It's one of the reasons I am managing to get by in a very challenging era when so many people are in worse straits than I am through absolutely no fault of their own.
Clark drove a school bus mornings and afternoons and worked as a barber the rest of the time. His barbershop had a vending machine in it that sold cold sodas and his backroom was outfitted with his leatherworking stuff.
Clark made several of my custom leather purses when I was a teen. I fondly remember a large saddlebag-style purse that he dyed blue and carved flowers all over.
Clark gave my firstborn son his first haircut at the age of seven months. My son had long eyelashes and a lot of a hair for a baby and I was tired of everyone asking me how old "she" was.
So I got him a haircut and Clark gave me a certificate commemorating my baby's first haircut that I kept for some years in a file somewhere. And then I dressed my son in a blue sweatsuit with a football on the front of the sweatshirt to try to signal "boy" as much as possible.
Alas, two hours later, someone was cooing about how beautiful my baby was and asking again how old "she" was.
Clark also gave me a haircut when I was fourteen years old. I had started gymnastics and was tired of stepping on my long hair. So I got it cut extremely short so I could do gymanstics without my hair being in the way.
For a time, my parents had their own shop in the same strip mall, two doors down from Clark's Barbershop. I think it was called Uncle Bill's Sewing Shop or something like that. My recollection is "Uncle Bill" was part of the name.
My dad's name was Bill and some folks tacked on the informal honorific "uncle" even though they weren't related to him. That's where the name of the store came form.
Bill was also Clark's first name, which is no doubt why no one in my family ever called Clark by his first name.
I'm guessing he was okay with it at least in part because he had military service behind him. It isn't strange to be called by just your last name in the army.
My dad opened a shop because he wanted to sell and repair sewing machines. I guess he also wanted to be his own boss because he had already sold and repaired sewing machines for some other small businessman, a man named David Reynolds.
My mom wanted to be involved in the business and my mom sews beautifully. So she wanted to do more with the business than just sell and repair sewing machines. She also wanted to sell various sewing supplies, like patterns, thread, lace and cloth.
My parents would drive up to Atlanta to buy bolts of cloth and what not in a borrowed or rented van. I sometimes went with them.
This was before the internet and I guess there wasn't as much in the way of readily available information resources for small businesses. The shop didn't succeed and they closed it down.
The homemade display tables went in our dirt basement. All the leftover sewing patterns, material, thread, lace and what not went in mom's sewing room.
Although my parents didn't succeed with their small business, my mom was actually good at making money herself in an entrepreunial fashion. She took in sewing for years at a time when she was nominally respecting my dad's edict that "no wife of mine will ever work."
That's something he told her when they met. It no doubt sounds terrible out of context, but this was a different era and part of what he was saying was "I'm a good provider."
And he was a good provider. He was a really good provider -- when they met. Then he retired from the army when I was three and never quite adapted to the civilian world and never had a successful post-military second career.
When I was twelve, mom got tired of our finances always being tighter than she liked. So she told dad "You don't make enough money to back that up" and she began officially working instead of quietly taking in sewing while officially "not working."
As a child, I was actually exposed quite a lot to small business, working from home and similar. Clark's Barbershop was not only a cornerstone of my childhood, it was also a good example of how to make a small business work.
He drove a school bus to make sure he had some kind of steady paycheck, but that didn't fill his days. It was very part-time.
So he owned a barberhop as well, but he knew business would fluxuate. There would be slow times when he was sitting around doing nothing.
So he did leatherwork to keep himself constructively busy during the times that he had no customers for his barbershop. He supplemented all of that with income from the vending machine.
I think a lot about that while trying to figure out how to piece together an income of my own in an entrepreunial fashion. I do a little blogging. I do a little freelance writing. I do some resume work.
While trying to figure out what to do today to fill my time constructively with an aim to turn it into money, I sometimes think about Clark's Barbershop and the example he set for me in that regard. It's one of the reasons I am managing to get by in a very challenging era when so many people are in worse straits than I am through absolutely no fault of their own.