Staff writer
Any barber likely knows hair matters. A particular style changes a person’s image. A snip here, a clip there, a buzz, a shear, and poof, when the hair settles, what once resembled the fabled Sasquatch suddenly becomes a real life person.
But who cuts the barbers hair?
Randy Wiens, owner of Silver Shears in Hillsboro, gets that question a lot. His answer is simple and direct.
“Ed Grothe cuts my hair,” Wiens said. “He and I have been trading haircuts for the past 30 years.”
Grothe, 80, spent 10 years as a barber after he was a telegraph operator and before he was a railroad engineer.
The two met when Wiens moved to Hillsboro. Before that, Wiens, 62, got his haircuts from a colleague at a barbershop in Oakley, where he previously worked.
Wiens trimmed his own hair up around the ears and in front, but never was able to do the back.
Grothe, who likes a “medium haircut,” had a similar problem.
“I never cut my own hair,” Grothe said. “I can’t do it right. How would I taper the back? I have enough trouble trying to get my wife’s hair right.”
Wiens and Grothe meet at Silver Shears for “barber bonding” the last Thursday of every month.
Grothe knows just how Wiens likes his hair cut. Sometimes he asks for it to be a little longer or a little shorter.
“I cut his hair first then he cuts mine,” Grothe said. “Randy’s started to wear it shorter.”