Native Sun News Today Contributing Editor
RAPID CITY— In a world of nothing but bald men, Dom Clucas might have chosen the wrong profession. Being the best barber, maybe in all of West River, wouldn’t count for much then.
But most men, especially young men, have hair up top, often unruly hair, hair that requires special attention. More than that, a haircut makes a statement about who you are, what you do, where you are going, and not just to other people, but to yourself. The right haircut completes the look of the person dressed for success, and if identical twins sit down, wearing identical suits, with identical qualifications, and identical personalities, but they have different haircuts, go with the guy with the better haircut.
We all have a haircut history in our minds. We remember the chair, the smells, the conversation, the clipping of the scissors, the stroke of the comb. It is one of those connective cultural threads, a shared experience to which we can all relate. Not even the best barber who ever lived, saw his profession as a calling. He probably just sort of fell into it.
Little boys back in the middle of the last century, the first barber they ever heard of was Sal “the Barber” Maglie, and he wasn’t a real barber, but a pitcher for the New York Giants, known for darting a fastball in so close it gave the batter a close shave. Baseball, not barbering, was the passion Dom Clucas first felt. “Right out of high school I wanted to go to college to play baseball. That was my thing,” Clucas said. “That just didn’t work out, so I just left and started working, and slowly fell into barbering. It wasn’t like something I ever wanted to do. My friends would be like, hey, clean my head up, do my ears up and my neck. I would do it and then it was actually grandpa Chuck (Charles Rencountre) that said, hey, why don’t you go to barber school, So, we were just hanging out in my apartment one day and he helped me apply for school online, fill out an application, and I was like, maybe I should be a barber. It worked out. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else, honestly.” Even if he hadn’t been passionate about becoming a barber, once Clucas got to Emily Griffith Technical College in Denver, and actually started classes, a genuine passion soon flamed to life. “School was like always super hard for me,” Clucas said. “But when I went to barber school, it was easy because I knew what I wanted to do. It was like I know where I am going and I gotta get this done because I am dedicated to what I am doing.” What helped to keep that passion aflame was Clucas found out he had the knack, he was not only good, but exceptional, and all that dedication was only going to make him even better still. A young barber can’t afford an ego, it makes for terrible chairside manner. And how you relate to your clientele is fundamental to being a good barber. It’s not just the technical expertise of a comb and scissors. They need to like you, and trust you, and if they leave with those two thoughts in their minds, they will come back. Repeat business is they only thing that keeps a wolf from a barber’s door. Now that he was licensed, Clucas needed a few things. He needed a studio, and a chair, and he needed some clients, and because he came of age in a new century, he knew how to get all three by taking advantage of the Age of Information.
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