Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Little Dance

On Sunday mornings there was a ritual of my father’s that I loved to watch. He shaved. However, he did not take two or three minutes to shave, it took at least a half an hour.
We had no bathroom, so it was a little more complicated then than it is now for a man to shave.
We had a tiny little tin medicine cabinet in the kitchen that hung under the shelf that had the little black radio on it. In that little cabinet was a straight edge razor that folded up, and a china cup with a round bar of soap especially for shaving. Inside the cup along with the shaving soap was a brush with long bristles and a china handle.
While mother would heat water to almost boiling, dad would get out all of his equipment. The first thing he would do was to get out his strap that he hooked on the wall by the medicine cabinet. Then he unfolded his razor and started to methodically lay the razor up and down on the strap. This was to sharpen his razor. He called it “stropping.”
By the time he was done sharpening his razor, mom had the water hot and poured it into a porcelain bowl. Dad would take a wash cloth and put it in this extremely hot water and do a little dance with it because it burned him. As soon as he was able he put the cloth on his face. He moaned and groaned until it cooled.
When this part of the ritual was done, he dipped the shaving brush into the hot water. Then he put the brush into the mug back and forth until he had enough soapy foam to apply to his face. He put the soapy stuff all over his face and would watch himself so he didn’t miss a spot that needed whiskers shaved off.
Now the fun part started that I loved to watch. He would take his straight edge razor and poise it over his face until he was satisfied he had the exact right angle to shave, but not cut himself. He would hold the skin with his left hand over his head and shave with his right hand. He contorted his lips, chin, and jaw just right for the most part. Occasionally dad would cut himself. On those occasions he would use a styptic pencil. He put the end of it on the part that was bleeding and yell like mad. I always wondered why he did that if it hurt so bad. Any way then he would put a tiny little piece of tissue paper on the cut. He looked funny when he had two or three places on his face with little pieces of paper glued on.
After he was finished shaving, mother had heated more water. He would then wash any remaining soap off, look in the mirror and would assess the situation. When he was satisfied that every whisker he could see was shaved off, then the bad part came. He would put some cheap shaving lotion in his two hands, rub them together and actually slap them on his face. He would howl and make another new dance step. I loved it. I will never forget this routine. When dad was finished shaving, then my mother would "test" the job by giving him a kiss to see if it was smooth enough.
My mother used to say that five moves were as good as a fire. I have listened to her tell over and over again that during the depression they had moved twenty six times for a quarter a day more salary etc. and that every time they moved something was broken or even one time a rocker fell off the old Model T truck that they had used to move with. I had made the appropriate responses to her like, “that must have been terrible” or “I’m sorry.” It was not until I had moved several times that I started missing things or recovered broken things from moving that I knew how mother felt. Among one of the things that got lost and broken was dad’s beloved shaving mug and razor. The razor was chipped and rusty, but I always had it on display. It is gone now, but I at least I have such fond memories of the “Little Dance”.
June 16, 2019 I just received this picture from my brother. He has had dad's shaving things all this time. I could have sworn I had it. A great big thank you to  my brother for taking such good care of dad's things all these years. He has been gone for over 40 years. A treasure...

2 comments:

  1. Mom, this is superb writing. Mark especially enjoyed this story.

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  2. Thanks for telling this story, Sis. I wish I had that memory. I guess I was too young to remember much. I remember him taking a bath in a wash tub in the middle of the kitchen floor, but I cannot remember him shaving with a razor. I guess he had moved on to high-tech electric shavers by then. The wash tub bath though brings back a smile.

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