For many, many years we lived in Northern New York where each fall someone would ask Carl, "Got your buck yet?" Since Carl is not a hunter he would always answer, "No". Apparently it was strange for a guy not to be a hunter in a hunting area.
About 10 years ago when we moved to Kentucky the question was, "Got your tobacco in yet?" Since Carl was not a tobacco farmer, but someone who did run around in bib overalls his answer was always, "No".
Now with the tobacco buy out and less and less tobacco being grown in Kentucky the question each spring is "Got your garden in yet?" and we can finally say "yes"!
These were mostly questions asked of Carl while sitting in the barber shop awaiting his turn to get his hair cut. The barbershop questions taking the place of the now defunct country store where the village men congregated during down times of farming.
Carl says there sure are a lot of weather discussions in a barber shop waiting room. I suppose even a beauty shop has discussions but probably not about the same subjects. I never paid much attention to discussions in beauty parlors since I usually took power naps while sitting in the chair.
These meeting places are an integral part of rural America and hopefully will be around for a long time. This is where information whether rumor or fact is disseminated and was the spread of local news in areas where there was no newspaper and even before radio and TV.
Today it is a good source of information too small or insignificant for large media to use, but essentially necessary for the local grape vine.
With the advent of high gas prices and the shrinking of our budget Carl and I have taken to cutting each other's hair. I guess not only will we be cutting hair, we will be cutting the local grape vine!
