Just a kid in Booneville, Miss., Charlie Green had no intention of becoming a barber.
But sometimes the wind blows a certain way and deposits people where they least expect it. And for Green, that meant Magnolia, where he ended up getting married, rearing three children and taking over the Fishermen's Terminal Barber Shop where he has been trimming head hairs, ear hairs and nose hairs for the last 45 years.
Green is a tall man with short grey hair and a smile that often grows into a laugh. He loves telling jokes to his customers or just catching up with their day-to-day.
On a given day, Green, along with Arthur Jenkins, who has leased a chair from Green for four years, will see about 25 heads saunter into the shop, get trimmed and cleaned up, hand off $14 each and then hold their chin up on their way out. It takes about 10 minutes for a man to get his hair cut at the terminal barber shop. So even with a healthy crop of customers, there's a lot of sittin' time, time that's filled with crosswords and conversation.
"It's fun and we laugh all day long," Jenkins said. "There's not a day when I don't look forward to coming to work. It's the best job I ever had, really."
In 1958, when Green was 21, he left Booneville for the army, which stationed him at Fort Lawton. While at Lawton, Green would drive over to the terminal to get his hair cut by Jens Adolphson, the original owner of the shop. Green hadn't any specific plans after the army so he signed up to train at Folks Barber Collage at First and Spring streets downtown and got a barber's license. Then in '65 Adolphson offered Green the shop and Green took it.
"When you own a place, you have the most inconsiderate boss in the world," Green said with a laugh, as he gave Roy Richards, a 20-year customer his customary trim. "Actually, anyone who sits in the chair is the boss."
"That's the truth," Jenkins piped in, his eyes trained on the electric trimmer set against the nape of his customer's neck.
Over the years in the barbershop, Green has seen presidents get elected, civil rights enacted, economies rise and economies fall. He's seen fishermen come and go - and was even invited to spend several months out on a fishing vessel himself - but never wanted to be that far from his family (he has three adult children now and is married to Pam). To this day, he speaks with his son, Dale, everyday on the phone.
He's also seen the price of crab go up from 9 cents a pound in 1965 to upwards of $14 today.
He also met his second wife, Pam, while she was working at the Wharf Restaurant, which before the terminal's redevelopment in the 1990s, was located right next door the barber shop. "I was a customer and I worked right next door," Green said. They married in 1989.
For just as long, Green has been living in Magnolia, not far from work.
Green is now 74 years old, but you can see the kid in him through his eyes and that quick smile. Retirement is waiting in the wings, but no date is set. He doesn't want to sit home. He said, if he had a choice, he would much rather sit at the shop and watch people go by and say hello and maybe do a crossword. But when he does make the move, it will likely be Jenkins who takes the keys.
"He wants to do that, eventually," Green said of Jenkins. "I don't know when that will happen. Somewhere down the road a little ways."[[In-content Ad]]
