I once made a mental note that somebody should be collecting all those Royce stories. He had an understated sense of humor and unique ability to orchestrate mischief without ever leaving the barber shop where, at one time or another, he cut the hair of four generations of men in our family.
Royce Durham was abetted by an outwardly taciturn demeanor that always allowed him to keep a straight face.
Like the time J. D. Brame came walking into the barbershop carrying a large toy airplane. The explanation was innocent enough. Brame, who was a colorful character in his own right, was walking for his health when he came across the plane and picked it up for one of his grandsons. He was carrying it when he dropped by Royce’s barbershop — then located near the Eureka/Highway 6 intersection — for a haircut.
Once Royce finished, Brame walked out with the airplane headed down Eureka Street, walking toward home. Royce was immediately on the phone, calling down to Batesville Clinic where he spoke to Dr. Rupert Lovelace.
“Y’all have got to do something about Brame, he’s gone off his rocker,” Royce told the unsuspecting surgeon. “He just left here headed that way and he thinks he’s an airplane.”
When Brame had walked his way to Batesville Clinic, he was met by men in white coats, literally. Dr. Lovelace had been joined by Dr. N. C. House and they were prepared to make an intervention.
Meanwhile back at the barbershop, Royce was cutting more hair, smiling to himself almost imperceptibly and no doubt chuckling about all the explaining that was going on among his three friends down the street.
Often the victims were in his barber chair. Neail Hockaday recalls becoming one such victim — “back when I had some hair,” he said. Neail said he noticed other customers giggling as they glanced toward him, but he remained unaware that he was the object of their mirth until Royce spun him around for a look in the mirror.
Royce had scooped up hair wax that was intended to make then-in-vogue flat top cuts stand up. He had applied it to Neail’s long hair, fixing him in a startled, “hair-standing-on-end” expression.
Royce found creative use for a pair of thick-lensed drugstore glasses that withstood his throwing them hard down on the floor. After a customer wearing eyeglasses took his seat in Royce’s chair, he carefully removed the customer’s eyeglasses and set them on the nearby counter. Then, as though he’d had a sudden onset of madness, he slammed the switched glasses to the floor, uttering expletives.
His shocked customer — my dad was one, Miles Mitchell another — just sat there, assuming that his own spectacles had been shattered into pieces on the floor and trying to figure out whether he would be better off fleeing the shop with impaired vision or sitting there and hoping that Royce would regain his sanity.
There are many more, but I heard my favorite just a few months ago from Royce’s own lips when I asked him to recall a memorable duck hunt down below Crowder with J. C. Burns.
They were maneuvering their boat over flooded fields and ditches, Royce told me, when they neared a ditch bank where Burns said he wanted to get out. He asked Royce about the depth of the water.
Royce said nothing but took the end of his boat paddle with one hand and used it as though he was feeling for the bottom. What Royce did was to jab the paddle up and down like he was hitting soft mud about two feet beneath their boat’s flat bottom.
Burns hopped out of the boat and immediately sunk out of sight into cold, muddy water over his head. Royce still laughed about when Burns resurfaced, cursing Royce and spitting out muddy water.
I’m sure readers have their own Royce stories, and we’ll be entertain each other by retelling those stories for years to come.
Royce Durham, 1939-2016.