At 78, a barber retires, knows he'll miss it all

CELINA - George Romer for many years began each day of work at his barbershop on 913 W. Logan St. in the same fashion - freshly brewed coffee, doughnuts and lots of chatter shared among a breakfast crew of friends.
  From 7:30-9 a.m., the boys would shoot the breeze, exchanging the latest bits of news on the grapevine and down cups of java, Romer said.

"We talked about everything," he said. "I probably knew more than you guys at The (Daily) Standard ever knew."

Several weeks after making the difficult decision to put down his barber shears for good due to his diminishing strength from a battle with cancer, Romer, 78, is still reeling with a sense of acute loss.

"They were never clients. They were friends. I was born with a knack for meeting and making people like me, and it worked like a charm," Romer said. "But the feeling was mutual. I loved them, and that's what's killing me now. Retired, I'm just absolutely lost."

Romer raised a family - wife Bev, who died in 2001 and four daughters - and enjoyed a career that many dream about, one in which he always looked forward to getting out of bed to open shop.

"I never dreaded going to work. And my heart breaks when I think about those guys," he said about his regular customers throughout the years. "Several of them that used to come in are dead, but somebody would always take their place."

It's that abiding love of people that sustained Romer through nearly six decades of cutting hair.

Loyal customers, friends and family have the opportunity to relive the good old days - and thank the barber for his years of clean cuts and engaging banter - at Romer's retirement party set for 1-4 p.m. Sunday at the Celina Eagles Aerie.

"Everyone's welcome," the amiable, gregarious and slightly mischievous barber said.

Looking back on a life well lived, Romer pinpointed the exact moment his career aspiration dawned on him - Xavier "Shakey" Hein's barber shop in Coldwater.

"I was sitting there getting a haircut and I thought, 'You know what? This wouldn't be a bad job. You're inside. Shakey lives a good life,' " Romer recalled. "And I actually signed up for barber school in the eighth grade."

Upon graduating from Coldwater High School in 1959, Romer and his three best buddies attended Moler Barber College in Cincinnati. Romer said the program lasted a little over a year.

"Actually, you cut hair for two-thirds of the day and then you had books for a third of it, which I never ever used," he explained. "Back then they taught neck massages and all kinds of shaves. Early on in my career I did a lot of shaves and lot of shampoos and then they just kind of went by the wayside."

Romer practiced the tonsorial craft in college by giving free haircuts, usually to derelicts.

"Every bum in Cincinnati. Usually they were drunk, never clean," Romer said about the clientele that showed up for the free service. "I thought your head was green until I got out of barber school."

Romer said he fulfilled his mandatory year-and-a-half apprenticeship and really learned his chops at a four-chair barber shop in Beavercreek owned by Cy Grilliot

"He was great to me. He taught me how to cut hair. The first day on the job he said, 'All that stuff they taught you, here's how you cut,' " Romer said.

Under Grilliot's watchful eye, Romer shaved his cutting time down from 30 to 15 minutes, largely due to eschewing the scissors for the clippers.

"I still use the scissors, but basically you become a clipper barber," he said.

Romer described the clientele at the Beavercreek shop, many from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as arrogant.

"But I cut every famous person in Dayton there. It was Beavercreek. It had no city tax," he said.

Among those he barbered were the founder of Steak 'n Shake and Ervin J. Nutter, the namesake of Wright State University Nutter Center, Romer pointed out.

"And he was a tough cut, I tell you, particular as hell," Romer said. "Ended up being a decent guy."

After a year, Romer moved to a shop on Salem Avenue that found the fledgling barber in the company of a much more congenial clientele.

"They were friendlier, easier to get along with," he said. "Mr. Nutter found me there. He said, 'You think you can get rid of me that easy?' "

It was during these formative years that Romer realized the importance of conversation.

"It was a gift. I was just good at it. The Romers are very outgoing people, and I made friends from the beginning."

Romer revealed the trick of establishing rapport with customers.

"Pretty much talk about them and not yourself," he offered. "And then when you get to know them you talk about yourself because that's what they're interested in."

Romer decided to come back to Mercer County and took a few jobs before eventually partnering with Dennis Dues, a high school acquaintance, to start George and Denny's Barber Shop at 410 W. Logan St.

They moved to 913 W. Logan after their first shop burned down, he said.

"The first customer I ever had in Celina was Jon Sidenbender, and when I retired I was still cutting his hair and he's the finest man I ever knew," Romer said, adding Sidenbender was a teacher, farmer, football coach and athletic director. "If you're going to build a guy and say 'that's a great guy, he's it.' "

Romer noted that Sidenbender would always bring his daughters into the shop to buy them a gumball.

"As they grew older they naturally fell off. On his 70th birthday they all showed up for a gumball," he said.

Romer amassed a loyal base of customers.

"I never thought of them as a customer. I thought of them as a friend," he stressed.

A barber's personality is almost as important as his skills with the clippers, Romer asserted.

"You got to be able to know people or you can't make it in that job," he said.

He also adjusted to hairstyles that rose and fell out of vogue.  

"About every five years you could count on it," he said about evolving styles. "Flattops were big and then the Beatle haircut came in and then they went to lines on the side, and thank God eventually when I retired here they're back to normal."

For Romer, a normal hair "would mean it would be off your ears - not scalped, just off the ear - and tapered in the back."

When he started out, people typically got their hair cut every two to three weeks. That changed to every three to four months during the so-called Beatle era, "and now it's back to three weeks."

"To stay with the trend, I ended up coaching Little League football for 25 years and baseball 15 years so I was able to talk to them young guys," he said.

Romer also set aside Mondays to cut hair for inmates at the Mercer County jail for 40 years, "which was not a highlight reel," he pointed out.

Asked about how his profession has changed, Romer said when he started as many as 10 barbershops were in Celina. Now only a few remain.

"When beauty shops started cutting hair I thought, 'That will never work..' Well, it did," he admitted. "But my people were loyal as hell. I didn't worry about customers. I always had plenty."

Romer put in as many as 60 hours a week, but that heavy workload was cut in half in recent years due to his bouts with cancer.

"I never missed a day's work in 56 years and then … I had four cancers that I so far have whipped. I got lung (cancer) yet - and we're ahead of it."

Several weeks back Romer said he went to work and realized he couldn't muster the strength for the job. He insists he has strength enough to live but not enough to work.