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CLOVIS: WEST SEVENTH…..and BARBERSHOPS
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ROBERT:
Mil....I was watching the NM Lobos walloping (how's that for a good word?) the San Diego Aztecs on TV last night. An Australian, Cameron Bairstow was the Lobo's star. It reminded me of Bristow's market on the south side of Seventh Street between Merriwether and Hinkle. And, right next to Bristow's was Red's barbershop where my grandpa used to take me when I was five or six years of age for 25 cent haircuts.
Across the street on the north side of Seventh was Jack Calkin's auto body shop and Dr. Pepper Bottling Co. (next to the alley), if my memory hasn't faded. Then, one block east of Bristow's next to Durand's Butchers was the Clovis Drug Store, owned and operated by Manuel and Molly. My favorite there, when I had a nickel or dime which dictated the size, was their "cherry phosphate" served in a paper cone cup that fitted into a black plastic holder to support the cup. They were easy to tip over.
Thinking of barber shops, there was also one just north of the Lyceum theater. That was the next one for me after Red's. Then came a shop located on Main Street in the Silver Grill shopping complex. And, the last place I got my hair cut in Clovis was at Angus and Wayne Petty's just north of the Avalon Hotel on Mitchell. I can still see A.W. Skarda at probably around 75-80 years of age after his haircut, grasping the arm rests of the barber chair at Petty's, and leaping out of the barber chair. He was still living In Hotel Clovis at the time.
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MIL:
Robert, You described West Seventh to a "T." There was one place you left out---right east of Calhoun on the north side of W. Seventh, and on the alley, was a small neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery store. It was run by my great-uncle E.A. Key, mayor of Clovis circa 1931. The little building may still be there.
As you said, Bristow's was on the south side of the street. I was in there many times with Dad, who bought the orange blocks of chili (frozen) from Durand. (I never liked it---it was very greasy and had lumpy fat meat in it---the so-called "chili grind.") Ms. Bristow, as I remember her was a nice, friendly, petite little woman. Did Durand later start his own market?
The Clovis Drug was run by Manuel and his wife. He wore a tan pharmacist's coat. We kids, in those days, went into every store on the way home from movies, "just looking," and he didn't seem overjoyed to have us messing around. I never saw a soul in that quiet, dark store.
In the early days, '38 and '39, Manuel had a restaurant in the little matching building to the east of the drug store, which had drive-in service and served great "malted milks." Triple-dip ice cream cones were 15 cents.
My brother-in-law bought that drug store in the seventies and it became a Yamaha motorcycle shop.
Clovis barber shops are a very interesting subject. My first one to patronize when I was four-and-a-half was on the alley on W. Fourth, by the post office. Two guys named Jenks and Nolan ran that one. (Years later Nolan's son cut my hair in Albuquerque.)
Then I went to Jim's on W. Grand; then to Carrington's on Main south of Duckworth Drug. (There were good barbers in there,including Jim King, Cotton Grant, and Carrington.) That's the last shop I remember having spittoons.
Like you, I then went to the shop just north of the Lyceum Theater; Cotton Grant must have bought it as I remember him in there. Years later, when in Clovis, I visited him and his brother in a shop out in the north Clovis shopping area. Several of those barbers were from the Melrose area.
It was a good home-town.
It was the only world we knew.
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BY ROBERT STEBBINS,
.......and MIL
2/23/14
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