Mickey Rounds' Barber Shop always abuzz with hometown snippets

Originally published Saturday, May 17, 1997

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Whoever goes around Mukilteo sooner or later comes around to Mickey Rounds' Hometown Barber Shop.

"They usually go an average of six weeks between haircuts, but one local guy gets his hair cut every 10 days!" said Mickey, pausing between careful selective thinning on the lower edges of my tonsorial clearcut.

Mickey's Hometown Barber Shop is a tiny one-chair clip joint on the edge of the densely landscaped Lincoln Avenue Courtyard just above the ferry landing. It's right across the street from the old Rosehill School -- now a Community Center -- where Mickey Rounds and Mayor Brian Sullivan went through kindergarten to sixth grade together. Sullivan owns and operates the pizza restaurant next door to the barbershop.

This is one of those old-town, hometown, male-bastion businesses that didn't necessarily start out that way. Mickey Rounds doesn't have pinup calendars or elk racks or stuffed steelhead on the walls or big chrome ash trays scattered around the customer waiting area. In fact, there's a "No Smoking" sign and a serve-yourself pot of hot coffee in plain sight as you walk in the front door off Lincoln Avenue.

Mickey doesn't discourage women customers, but he's not exactly set up for those $79.95 full-do's, either. He simply wanted to open a barbershop in his hometown where he could stand around and talk with folks ... and get paid for it.

"I've got a cosmetology license; I went all the way in barbering and beautician school in Everett, but I tried the salon thing and didn't much care for it," said the 37-year-old native son with the full head of hair and a nicely trimmed goatee.

So his small shop in the Old Town area at the northern tip of Mukilteo has become, de facto, the place where local guys hang out.

And there's a framed Reader's Digest snippet submitted by Mickey to illustrate. Seems a local man stuck his head in the front door and asked "How long for a haircut?" and was told: "At least 1-1/2 hours."

"No problem," says the guy, who sits down and begins reading Mickey's magazines. Lots of magazines later, Mickey apologizes and invites the customer to sit for a trim.

There's no hurry, assures the customer. "My wife wants me to mow the lawn today."

There have been "maybe eight or nine" women or girls who came in for haircuts in the almost 10 years since he turned on his revolving No. 405 Marvey barber pole light outside 405 Lincoln Ave., Mickey said.

The customers constitute "maybe 40 percent senior citizens" and "about one-third Boeing workers," Mickey observed. They don't all share his one customer's proclivity for procrastination on haircut scheduling, but they're happy to sit around -- limited appointments are $2 extra -- and wait their turn.

"One day, after I'd been on vacation, I came back to work on a Monday and found a half-dozen guys sitting on the benches outside, just waiting. I think that was my record day: 32 haircuts. Took me 11-1/2 hours. And no one complained about having to wait.

"Some of them like to talk almost as much as I do," quipped Mickey, whose mother and sister told him that's why he should be a barber. "But sometimes, especially when it's just me and a customer, he might start talking about a divorce or other personal problems, and then it's time to be a good listener.

"And I guess it's sorta like being a bartender or a priest. Most of them know that this conversation is confidential. Nothing they say here goes out of here." (Well, almost nothing. But I cleared that with Mickey even before I asked the cost of a haircut and beard trim.)

For the $11 price of a haircut ($9 if you're 60 or older) and another $2 for a beard trim (double that, if no haircut) or a shampoo, you can talk about your crummy job or your dumb boss.

Or you can listen to Mickey talk about raising teenagers -- he has two -- or the new library proposal or what local roads are blocked by construction.

"Lotta changes in this town since I played down here as a boy. There were maybe 1,400 people living here then; now there's at least 14,000. My folks still live in the house where I grew up, about two blocks from here," volunteered Mickey, who cuts father Don's hair.

"Taylor's Landing, where I used to be a cook, has changed hands after all those years in the family. Now it's an Ivar's place. The post office and the bank have all moved up the road," he said, nodding south toward the Mukilteo Speedway, which is anything but, since the new Harbour Pointe Mall area began expanding.

Mickey keeps in touch with the broadening customer base, partly with a chatty monthly column and "Mickey's Big Bucks" trivia quiz in the local Mukilteo Beacon (prizes include free calzones or lattes or gift certificates). And partly with semiannual drawings.

"It's my way of saying 'Thank you' to the customers," he said.

"One year, it was a trip for two on the Princess Marguerite. Another year, it was on the Victoria Clipper. Or it might be dinner for two at the Space Needle. And in the autumn, we have a drawing for a turkey. Last year, a regular customer's 7-year-old daughter won."

Cutting hair is one thing no one's figured out how to do with computer, so Mickey's career choice and business prospects seem pretty solid right now in a community with only several other barbers. But, of course, Mickey doesn't patronize those other shops.

"My wife, Kathy, does my hair ... not bad, huh?" he says, smoothing a hand over his thick, well-trimmed hair.

He didn't mention how much she charges, or if he leaves a tip.

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I.