I got a haircut in Iraq once, just after the first Gulf War, and wondered if it was smart to offer up my head to a stranger with a razor.
I briefly had the same feeling Tuesday at a barbershop in Orange County, but I made it out alive to tell this story.
Fair guy that I am, I asked for a little help on Sunday in my column. I'd written about the rabid support for Barack Obama at Tolliver's Barber Shop in South Los Angeles, and I wanted a recommendation for a barbershop where I'd hear different views.
One reader had suggested I try a joint in Seal Beach, another nominated one in Newport Beach. But I liked the sounds of the third choice, recommended by reader Greg Martin, because it was near Rick Warren's megachurch and not far from the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in a Lake Forest strip mall.
I was not disappointed. I traveled from a blue state to a red state, and it only took me an hour.
Inside Haircuts $6, pillars were wrapped in the colors of Old Glory, the flags of the four branches of military service hung on the walls, customers waited in wooden church pews, retired veterans cut the hair of other retired vets, and the TV was tuned to Fox News, which was broadcasting from the GOP convention in Minnesota to the delight of barbers and clients alike.
Jim Gilchrist, the Minutemen's chief musketeer, gets his hair cut here. You can buy a Minuteman cap in the shop, as well as a Special Forces hat that says: "Mess with the best. Die like the rest."
Paul Blake, the ex-Marine who owns the shop, stated the obvious when I told him why I'd come: "You won't find too many votes for Obama in here."
As Fox anchors did their thing from St. Paul, white-haired Al Ott stepped out of a barber chair with a fresh trim and a God Bless America T-shirt.
"I like the choice of Palin for vice president," Ott said. "I think she's an assertive-type person, and she's a good-looking woman, which doesn't hurt."
I tried to play devil's advocate.
Sure, Palin's knowledge of Alaska might make her well-equipped to lead the charge if we decide to invade Canada or run a brigade into Russia from across the Bering Sea. But isn't it a little troubling, I asked, to know that if a President McCain were to keel over, we'd have a president with wet ink on her passport?
Not a problem, I was told by one and all. She's a smart gal who'll learn fast, and being in a state so far from D.C. is a huge plus. Could Sen. Joe Biden bring down a caribou?
