For myself it was the barbershop that I used to frequent as a kid in the 80s/90s. Imagine creaky old wooden floor boards, thick polished furniture, the smell of hair cream and tobacco drifting in the air with either jazz or sports results playing over the radio. The owner, old Jeff, was a strong spirited and well spoken man who resembled the actor Robert Duvall but with a long thick beard. He would always smoke a tobacco pipe as he cut hair, as did all the old gentlemen who spent their days playing chess and cards on the table in the corner of the room.

His customers were all made up of veterans, retired miners, steel workers, farmers or merchant sailors. As far as I know I was the only young person there (I started going there at 8 until Jeff's death when I was 23) and the old gents would forever share stories of adventure, their experiences, interjected with life lessons such as how to shake hands, how to look another man in the eye, how to speak, how to break someone's nose etc. Since my father died from cancer not long after my birth, these guys were my role models and I thank their memories everyday for my upbringing.

Women were hardly spoken about, certainly not outside of warning me against marriage and their presence would be tolerated at best. Occasionally a wife would drag her husband in for a haircut but Jeff, ignoring the nagging woman completely, would look at the man and ask him if he wanted a haircut. If replied a yes, he would then ask the man what style and if the man dared to just look at his wife for an answer Jeff would tell them that he was busy and to come back another time. This I later learned, was his way of weeding out the 'slaves' as he called them. If a man couldn't speak for himself then he wasn't a man and Jeff “only cut men's hair” as he used to say with a smile.

Likewise if someone came in asking to look like the latest effeminate pop star (very common back then) Jeff would deny them service. His philosophy was that men should look and act like men, and in no way was he going to turn one into a little girl just to appease other little girls. This philosophy soon became part of me and to this day, whenever I see a man bowing to a woman, running around with shopping bags, off to have his nails manicured to appeal to his 'master' I can imagine Jeff and the rest of the old gentlemen looking at them with disapproval. God have a lot of men lost their way in life.

So what about you gentlemen?