Vice President-elect trusts longtime barber for his haircuts
EDINBURGH, Ind. (AP) - Mike Pence's Aug. 23 haircut at Jones Barber Shop in Norristown, Pennsylvania, captured national media attention.
Reporters from CNN, ABC, FOX, NBC and NPR appeared, taking notes and pictures. CNN live-streamed the event on its Facebook page as the now vice president-elect got a campaign trim at a black barbershop.
Barber Henry Jones had no idea who the man in the chair was.
"This is a great haircut," Pence proclaimed, holding a mirror as he examined the backside of his just-shorn head. On a slow news day, a 20-minute haircut became a media event.
But for the past two decades, Pence's regular visits to Sherman's Barber Shop on Main Cross Street in Edinburgh have gone unnoticed. When he is in Indiana, Pence gets $8 haircuts from a third-generation barber in a town of 4,500 about 15 miles from his home in Columbus.
Pence gets his standard haircut, nothing fancy. "He comes in here and acts just like you and me do," Richard Pile said. On the way out, he hands his longtime barber a $20 bill and tells Pile to keep the change.
"If a black SUV pulls up here out front, it's usually a Tahoe, and a guy in a black suit gets out and stands there on the sidewalk and looks up and down the street, I know Pence will be here in about five minutes," 60-year-old Pile said. "He never calls ahead."
The barber shop sits on the main street through Edinburgh, a town where many low-income residents struggle to make rent and car payments on time. There's a vintage revolving barber's pole out front. The cost of a haircut at Sherman's hasn't increased in 10 years, Pile said.
Pile's grandfather, Tommy Sherman, opened the barber shop in 1946 and in many ways, the interior has stayed true to those days. The floor is black-and-white checkerboard tiles, and the two Koken-brand barber chairs - heavy steel frames, padded black leather cushions, ivory porcelain arms - have been there 70 years.
Pence always chooses the one by the big front window. "I've been cutting his hair long before he ran for any office," he said of the former governor and now second-in-command to President-elect Donald Trump. He cuts the hair of one of Pence's brothers as well, but he can't recall his name. "I call them both 'Pence.'"
For close to 30 years, Pile has overseen the business his maternal grandfather started after World War II. He lives upstairs, and most everyone in town knows him. When his customers come through the door, he usually knows how they want their hair cut and styled.
"Here's what's funny about Pence," Pile said. "He comes in, says to cut it as usual, and then when I go to turn him around in the chair to face the mirror he says I don't have to do that, that he knows it's just fine."
Pile has noticed that his longtime customer has not been monogamous when it comes to his hair stylist. But he isn't worried, confident Pence will return to him and his familiar shop in the end.
Not long ago, one of Pence's aides stopped by without his silver-haired boss. "He said, 'Richard, two things: One, I need a haircut. And two, he (Pence) will be back.'"
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Source: The (Bloomington) Herald-Times, http://bit.ly/2fVboNM
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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com