TOWN NAZARETH

COURTESY TEXAS RANGER HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
groomed customer came in twice a day,
first thing in the morning and then again
in the afternoon to get his five o’clock
shadow taken care of. His hand still
steady after more than six decades as a
barber, Mr. Frost remembered the past
in short snips as he continued with my
haircut, other customers listening in.
Finally, I took aim at Hamer—at least
in the interrogatory sense. Mr. Frost said
he didn’t remember much of what they
had talked about back in the late ’20s and
early ’30s, when Hamer had his headquarters
in Austin—probably just typical
barber-customer banter. But one thing
did stand out in his memory.
“The captain never got a shave and a
haircut at the same time,” he said. “Guess
he didn’t have that much time, or that
much money.”
A shave cost a quarter before the crash,
so the whole shebang would have set the 6-
foot-plus lawman back all of 65 cents. State
employees have never been overpaid, so
Hamer might have opted for an economy of
scale when it came to his tonsorial needs.
And then Mr. Frost recalled another
of the late captain’s eccentricities.
“When he did get a shave, he never let
me completely cover his face with a hot
towel,” my barber revealed. “He said too
many people wanted to kill him for him
to let his guard down.”
Given that Mr. Frost likely would have
been standing close enough to catch a stray
round or two if any shots had been fired at
the captain as he sat in the barber chair, he
didn’t mind Hamer’s cautious approach.
By the time I warmed Mr. Frost’s chair,
barbers no longer did much shaving of
faces. But when he asked if I’d like the back
of my neck shaved, I said yes. If the everviligant
Hamer trusted Mr. Frost to be
steady with a razor, so did I. Well, sort of.
“Just don’t cover my face,” I laughed,
sneaking one last look at his hand. Was
that a slight shake?
Nick free, when I stood up after Mr.
Frost removed the cover he’d draped
over my lap, I looked in the mirror. Perhaps
overly preoccupied with talking
about the old days, Frank Hamer’s barber
had removed almost all my hair! Mr.
Frost’s “regular” was the shortest haircut
I’d ever had this side of a burr.
Maybe the longtime barber’s ample
scissor work explained why most photographs
of Hamer show him wearing a
Stetson and a frown.
Mike Cox, frequent contributor
Capt. Frank Hamer
TexasCoopPower.com December 2012 Texas Co-op Power 23