Spiker’s Barber Shop: 100 Years on King Street (3 photos)

Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by René Hackstetter.

If you entered a monastic order in the Middle Ages, the young novitiate would receive the tonsure...the cutting of his hair in whatever peculiar cut the Benedictines or the Cistercians liked to shave the head. Get the bowl out.

Spiker's, with its red-and-white pole, marks this place that fathers and grandfathers brought unkempt sons to put each hair in order and mark this rite of passage to adulthood with the shoring of the locks as the first priority when setting upon samsonian tasks.

Yes, this is his sacred work and he has been doing it carefully, quietly, and undemonstratively, at his King Street stand as his father and his grandfather did for one hundred years.

Men’s haircuts now, after 12 years, only $20. If the work is excellent, and it always is, a tip is given freely and generously from his grateful patrons.

Paul is a large presence in the shop and, post COVID, works until the mid-afternoon as he has his regulars. They are only too grateful to get a cut and share the gossip, commiserate about the Liberals, their current scandals, and what is it about these local councillors...are they nuts...and so forth.

All good fun and part of that community charged with knowing what is going on at Town Hall and offering opinions whether you like it or not.

Coming away from my first haircut since March, I dropped into his chair with gratitude and a deep sense of relief that things were returning to normal.

Returning home shorn like a lamb, my wife no longer felt the edges of the jungle coming to meet her and, for the first time in months, actually recognized me. Proudly whipping off my cap, I preened and saw my ears for the first time.

Like many local men we are loath to admit our pleasure with the professional cut, feeling that any self-interest borders on narcissism. Our upbringing just does not permit that type of pride. However, a little indulgence can do wonders for self-esteem.

Does our innate Presbyterianism or our Calvinistic temperaments, prevent this self-love? These are secrets we share with our barber, that personal representative of the tonsorial art that is both, therapist, confessor and hair-cutter all at once.

The sign could easily read Dr. Paul Spiker, MA,Tonsorial Art.

Granddad’s first stand was in the old Queens Hotel. Subsequently, Paul’s Dad ran the place, then a succession of moves, remaining on King, until finally his present location on the west side north of the Crow's Nest. That this is a signal accomplishment, there is no doubt. This merits recognition for continuity, for community and has the gratitude of the shorn. 

Copyright Rene Hackstetter, July 31, 2020.