The Sampler Gets Groomed
The Vintage Barber Josh Buhneing.
It began with an autumn whim,“ no-shave November” said some guys on TV, and it seemed like a good chance to dodge the ordeal for a few months.
But as the cold and ice of the hard gray winter began to close in and long hair became a second muffler and mask, it descended by phases into tonsurial chaos, nearly obscuring my true self.
With the arrival of Spring, I suddenly became aware of the hair, hair, hair sticking out in every direction, untouched by professional rectification and desperately in need of a major editing.
Luckily, I had noticed in my usual perambulations the opening of a new enterprise, a business known for ages by the sign of a striped pole. Time to visit the new town barber. Arriving where“ It’ s not just a haircut— it’ s an experience,” I met barber Josh Buhneing, and climbed into his vintage barber chair for a classic haircut. 44 Our Brown County • May / June 2015
It’ s not just any chair— it dates to 1951 and once resided at the Indiana Masonic Home in Franklin.
“ My Dad and I tore it down and fixed the hydraulics so it tips back for shaves and everything now,” Buhneing said.
It was his dad who started him thinking about the career path he would eventually follow.
“ I wanted something I could work for myself, I had to have that,” he said.“ I had tried different trades, electrical apprenticeship, and all this stuff that didn’ t work out.”
He recalls sitting with his dad watching TV and there was a barber shop on the show.“ It may even have been Andy Griffith and Floyd the barber. He said, just kind of jokingly,‘ There you go, you could be a barber!’ And I kind of laughed at it,” Buhneing recalls.“ But a few days later, I got to thinking,‘ That’ s not a bad idea!’ That was the first seed.”
He attended the Hair Force Academy in Seymour, and then Kay’ s Barber College in Indianapolis.
He’ s worked at bigger salons in Bloomington and Columbus over the past decade, but didn’ t like the emphasis on throughput.
“ This is the first time I’ ve had my own space,” he said.“ I just wanted to get away from the way a lot of places are today, all about getting people in and out— they have a time limit on you. I got sick of that …. I wanted to get back to what the barber shop should be. It should be a place of community. I feel like people here understand that and support that more so than surrounding areas.“ I like the community. I like the people.” Josh grew up near Peoga in extreme northeastern Brown County. His first visits to a barber shop, with his grandpa, were to barbers in Edinburgh and Franklin.
Buhneing said it’ s hard to get established. People haven’ t gotten used to the idea that there’ s a new barber in town.
But he casually mentioned three great marketing ideas just while he hacked the rangy winter brush off of my head to reveal a smiling face beneath.
It seems, he said, that there are many men among the visitors who are sort of“ at loose ends” while their spouses
Continued on 47