My step-father's barber shop was recently featured in the Orange County edition of the Orlando Sentinel. As they only keep articles on their website for a finite period of time, the text of the article is below.

Joe's B.S. is located at 979 West Fairbanks Avenue at the corner of Fairbanks and Adanson Street. The telephone number is 407.645.4551.

Flattop haircuts on watermelon heads test barbers' skills
By Jim Toner, Commentary
January 16, 2003
[ original article ] offline

As a teenager in the '50s, I once wore a hairstyle that was considered pretty stylish despite Elvis Presley's ducktails.

It was called the flattop.

And I was pretty particular about it, too. A flattop should be flat. Right?

Once, when I kept demanding that a barber take a little off one side, then the other for balance, he became exasperated.

"Look, kid," he explained. "It's not easy to give a watermelon head a flattop."

That's about when I started wearing my hair like James Dean. Most girls missed the connection, though.

But the sharp-tongued barber was apparently right about challenges posed by the flattop.

"Flattops are the most difficult to learn how to do," said Ross Nichelson, who runs an Orlando barbershop that has been in the family for almost a half-century. "If you make a mistake, you can't hide it."

While watermelon heads are easy to spot, another barber in Nichelson's shop, Judy Curtis, says there are perils when giving a flattop to an unfamiliar customer with a head full of hair.

You know, those people who, as Curtis puts it, "look like refugees from the '70s."

It's that little knob on the crown of the head. It's not so little on some people. When they get a flattop, that knob sticks out like Mount Rainier.

This is important, because the flattop is back. So are other short cuts. Nichelson says they account for 40 percent to 50 percent of his business. They ought to. There's a banner draped outside the shop, on Fairbanks Avenue, proclaiming "Flat Tops are our specialty."

The shop is called Joe's B.S., named after Nichelson's uncle, Joe Fallucca. No one is sure when Joe first opened his shop. They just know he moved it to the Fairbanks location just off Edgewater Drive in the '60s.

He had to move. When Edgewater was widened to four lanes, they took out his old building at Dowd Avenue.

Nichelson learned barbering and joined his uncle in 1985. His uncle died a year later but had pretty much turned over the business to him.

Nichelson said his uncle, a World War II veteran and former prisoner of war, had so many of his old buddies come in that he had to learn how to do a flattop fast.

He also added some touches to the shop. He always loved working with his hands. So he hung some vintage tools on the wall. Those wall displays grew as his customers contributed to the interior decoration.

Now, the place looks like a tool museum, with things like an old drill press operated by a hand crank. A large wooden mallet also hangs there for "quick" flattops.

The presence of those contributed tools almost gives his customers a piece of the place. Besides Nichelson and Curtis, Ruth Wells cuts hair at Joe's. Curtis and Wells have been there for years.

All give flattops. Some customers have their favorite barber; others just grab the first open chair. It is truly a neighborhood barbershop.

The B.S. in Joe's B.S. stands for barber shop, though there is a sign on the wall that reads:

"Cows may come and go but in this place bull goes on forever."

Jim Toner can be reached at jtoner@orlandosentinel.com or 407-772-8034. Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel.

In May 2009, Ross was again featured in the news, which you can read in "The Barbering Program."

Post Your Comments