The "Do You Know What's In Your Barber's Back Room?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Loaded my oldest son into the VW Bug with me and we headed to the barber shop to have our hair cut.  My son Derek would sit and look at the couple of children's books that Dick, our barber, had for to read while I had my hair trimmed and then Derek would sit in the chair and I would watch as the barber trimmed his hair.  Our barber shop was two blocks from our home in Grandview Heights, directly next to Lancaster Catholic High School.  Easy to identify since it had the candy-striped pole next to the door.  

Today's barber pole.

Barber poles go way bak to the 16th century in Europe when poles of all type were placed in front of shops, since over 60% of the population couldn't read at the time.  A large key told you a locksmith resided in the store, a scissors hanging near the door meant a taylor resided behind the store and a red, white and blue barber's pole meant this was the place to get your hair trimmed.  Little did I know at the time that Dick might have been doing a bit more in the back room of the barber shop besides living in it.  Back in the 16th century the barber was also a bloodletter!  Bloodletting was a standard treatment for a slew of maladies.  Many people thought that having excess blood in your body was the cause of most medical problems so to improve one's health, "bad blood" needed to be drained from the body.  And for some strange reason, the barber was who would do it for you.  To properly "breathe a vein," a patient would grasp a long staff, which helped his or her veins pop in relief.  Bandages were tightly wrapped around the pole.  When the barber lanced the vein, blood spiraled down the staff and collected in a bowl on the floor.  At times the bowl of blood was placed in the barber's window to advertise what they did in addition to cutting hair.  In London, England an ordinance was passed in 1307 saying "no barbers shall be so bold or so hardy as to put blood in their windows, openly or in view of folks."  So, the barbers placed the blood-streaked staff outside their barbershop as advertisement.  As the blood-streaked staff outside would unravel, it revealed a candy-cane pattern, thus the first true barber pole.  Two centuries passes before England enacted legislation that formally separated the professions of barber and surgeon.  The barber's pole still remained and today the modern barber's pole continues to pay homage to the profession's bloodletting past.  The cap or ball on the top of the pole represents the blood-catching basin while the spinning motion of many barber poles represents the customer's blood gently swirling down the barber's staff.  For myself, I no longer am in need of a barber, since the blood letting years ago caused my hair to disappear, thus my blood will remain in my body.  Now, for most of you reading this today...I'm almost positive that you never knew the significance and history behind the barber pole.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.