But you would be wrong, very wrong.
“I’m a talkative person. I like people, and I just talk all the time, you know,” Dave (Pidge) Morris said, on Friday, as fun-filled banter filled the air inside Jim’s Barber Shop on Prince Street. “I like sports and I just love it,” he said, of the constant chatter that takes place between his fellow barbers – owner Jamie Ramsey and Shirley Fowler – and the constant flow of regulars who rotate in and out of the shop’s barber chairs.
“He’s been doing it for 30 years,” customer Glen Rideout says, as ol Pidge runs his close-cropping electric clippers across his client’s scalp.
“I think everybody knows Pidge,” Rideout says, prompting a whispered response – “hell of a nice guy” - from the broadly grinning subject of conversation.“He’s so old he cut Jesus’s hair,” another customer quips on his way out the door.
“He’s a Toronto (Maple Leafs) fan but we can’t hold that against him,” Rideout tosses into the mix.
And, so it goes, as it has gone in the various barbershops where Pidge has snipped and clipped away at countless heads over the past 51 years.
“I have three uncles that were barbers and I always liked it,” says Pidge, 68, of how he decided to take up barber school at age 17. “I don’t know why. I always liked it and that’s what I wanted to do.”
Perhaps it was simply the opportunity of being able to earn a living while spending his days yakking away about the goings on about town, sports, the weather, sports and more sports.
After finishing barber school, Pidge cut his teeth in the barber business in early February 1964 in Annapolis Royal. The following April, he set off to Halifax where he snipped away for the next eight years prior to setting up his own shop in Parrsboro in 1972.
That shop – where he served up hair cuts for 33 years – was called Dave’s Barbershop and Sports Museum.
The shop was actually a registered sports museum, Pidge says, and was filled with his own vast collection of memorabilia.
Besides the various NHL players or baseball stars who would stop in while visiting the area on vacation, Pidge says, the Parrsoboro shop was also where he came to be friends with former Canadian heavyweight boxer turned anti-drug crusader George Chuvalo.
And it was there where one of Pidge’s more legendary and infamous barbershop tales was born, regarding a local “fisheries officer” who popped in one day following a brief weapons course immediately after Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officers had been issued guns.
“So he went away on a gun course for three days and when he came back he come into my barbershop and he was beating on the side of his gun to get my attention that he had a gun,” Pidge laughs, recalling the tale. “So, anyway, I looked at it and I said let me have a look at it Vern.’ So he takes the gun out and handed it to me.”
The officer first removed the clip and the bullet from the chamber and then passed it over for Pidge and the four or five other chaps gathered in the shop to look at.
“I give it back to him and he says ‘one thing about this gun it’s got a good little safety on it,’” Pidge says. “’You put the clip in ‘er like that he says and just pull it down a little bit like that and it jams it. But in the meantime he got a bullet up in the chamber. So anyway, I said ‘giv’er a go and see what she does.’ So he sat down in the chair, everybody got really quiet. He pulled the trigger and BOOM, she went off.”
The bullet went right though the wooden floor of Pidge’s shop, he says, while the incident itself prompted an investigation that had officials coming from as far away as Ottawa.
“I even had a call from B.C. (from another fisheries officer) wanting to know if that really happened,” Pidge chuckles. “And I said, ‘yeah, it did,’ and they laughed.”
And so the stories go. And after 51 years you can bet ol’ Pidge has no end to them.
After moving to Truro in 2002, he now has been working with Ramsey for the past 10 years. And if Pidge has his way, you can expect he will be around for at least a couple more.
So, if you’re ever hankering to hear a tale or two, pop in and ask ol’ Pidge about the trotting good time he had after being bushwhacked with some Exlax-laden pizza.
Twitter: @tdnahrry
Profile
Who: Dave (Pidge) Morris
Age: 68
Years in the trade: 51, attended barber school at age 17.
Where to find him: Jim’s Barber Shop on Prince Street.
Career path: First barber job was in February 1964 in Annapolis Royal, by April that year he was in Halifax, set up his own shop in Parrsboro in 1972 called Dave’s Barbershop and Sports Museum and operated it for 33 years. After moving to Truro in 2002, he has been working with Jim Ramsey for the past 10 years.
Interests: Sports and collecting sport memorabilia and talking to people.
But you would be wrong, very wrong.
“I’m a talkative person. I like people, and I just talk all the time, you know,” Dave (Pidge) Morris said, on Friday, as fun-filled banter filled the air inside Jim’s Barber Shop on Prince Street. “I like sports and I just love it,” he said, of the constant chatter that takes place between his fellow barbers – owner Jamie Ramsey and Shirley Fowler – and the constant flow of regulars who rotate in and out of the shop’s barber chairs.
“He’s been doing it for 30 years,” customer Glen Rideout says, as ol Pidge runs his close-cropping electric clippers across his client’s scalp.
“I think everybody knows Pidge,” Rideout says, prompting a whispered response – “hell of a nice guy” - from the broadly grinning subject of conversation.“He’s so old he cut Jesus’s hair,” another customer quips on his way out the door.
“He’s a Toronto (Maple Leafs) fan but we can’t hold that against him,” Rideout tosses into the mix.
And, so it goes, as it has gone in the various barbershops where Pidge has snipped and clipped away at countless heads over the past 51 years.
“I have three uncles that were barbers and I always liked it,” says Pidge, 68, of how he decided to take up barber school at age 17. “I don’t know why. I always liked it and that’s what I wanted to do.”
Perhaps it was simply the opportunity of being able to earn a living while spending his days yakking away about the goings on about town, sports, the weather, sports and more sports.
After finishing barber school, Pidge cut his teeth in the barber business in early February 1964 in Annapolis Royal. The following April, he set off to Halifax where he snipped away for the next eight years prior to setting up his own shop in Parrsboro in 1972.
That shop – where he served up hair cuts for 33 years – was called Dave’s Barbershop and Sports Museum.
The shop was actually a registered sports museum, Pidge says, and was filled with his own vast collection of memorabilia.
Besides the various NHL players or baseball stars who would stop in while visiting the area on vacation, Pidge says, the Parrsoboro shop was also where he came to be friends with former Canadian heavyweight boxer turned anti-drug crusader George Chuvalo.
And it was there where one of Pidge’s more legendary and infamous barbershop tales was born, regarding a local “fisheries officer” who popped in one day following a brief weapons course immediately after Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officers had been issued guns.
“So he went away on a gun course for three days and when he came back he come into my barbershop and he was beating on the side of his gun to get my attention that he had a gun,” Pidge laughs, recalling the tale. “So, anyway, I looked at it and I said let me have a look at it Vern.’ So he takes the gun out and handed it to me.”
The officer first removed the clip and the bullet from the chamber and then passed it over for Pidge and the four or five other chaps gathered in the shop to look at.
“I give it back to him and he says ‘one thing about this gun it’s got a good little safety on it,’” Pidge says. “’You put the clip in ‘er like that he says and just pull it down a little bit like that and it jams it. But in the meantime he got a bullet up in the chamber. So anyway, I said ‘giv’er a go and see what she does.’ So he sat down in the chair, everybody got really quiet. He pulled the trigger and BOOM, she went off.”
The bullet went right though the wooden floor of Pidge’s shop, he says, while the incident itself prompted an investigation that had officials coming from as far away as Ottawa.
“I even had a call from B.C. (from another fisheries officer) wanting to know if that really happened,” Pidge chuckles. “And I said, ‘yeah, it did,’ and they laughed.”
And so the stories go. And after 51 years you can bet ol’ Pidge has no end to them.
After moving to Truro in 2002, he now has been working with Ramsey for the past 10 years. And if Pidge has his way, you can expect he will be around for at least a couple more.
So, if you’re ever hankering to hear a tale or two, pop in and ask ol’ Pidge about the trotting good time he had after being bushwhacked with some Exlax-laden pizza.
Twitter: @tdnahrry
Profile
Who: Dave (Pidge) Morris
Age: 68
Years in the trade: 51, attended barber school at age 17.
Where to find him: Jim’s Barber Shop on Prince Street.
Career path: First barber job was in February 1964 in Annapolis Royal, by April that year he was in Halifax, set up his own shop in Parrsboro in 1972 called Dave’s Barbershop and Sports Museum and operated it for 33 years. After moving to Truro in 2002, he has been working with Jim Ramsey for the past 10 years.
Interests: Sports and collecting sport memorabilia and talking to people.
