Tag Archives: Leland Corbett

Colliers, Brilliantine and Floyd: barbershop memories.

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Capital-Journal
Nov. 3, 1986

One day recently I had a late-afternoon haircut and was the only customer in the place. I also was the only man in the place. My barber (barberess, beautician, hair stylist, coiffeuse, friseur, cosmetologist, clipper, cropper or whatever) was a woman.

Two or three more of the above were sitting around, waiting for the place to close. There also was a child – a little girl, naturally. I was at their mercy, but they didn’t take advantage of it. Maybe it was because the little girl was present.

Driving home, I thought about how times have changed. I remembered some of my first haircuts and the barbershop back in Britton, Okla., where I grew up. You don’t see anything like it these days. Continue reading →

Growing Up in Britton, Okla.

Posted on by
Reply

Postcard from Britton

Topeka Capital-Journal

In these times of economic turmoil, stock market calamities and energy crises, I enjoy calling a time-out to remember the simple life in Britton, Okla., where I grew up. Sometimes I think the only person in Britton who ever worried was my mother, who always was worrying about something.

Maybe she had a right to worry.  We moved to Britton in the late 1920s when my dad bought a drug store there. His timing wasn’t exactly ideal. Before he could get established in the town of about 2,000, there was the “Crash of ’29,” when the market collapsed, followed by the Great Depression.

Britton survived both. There were some unemployed men in town, but pretty soon President Roosevelt’s WPA “made work” programs came along, and everyone who wanted to work could, and had a little money to spend. Continue reading →