5 Things I Miss About the 'Burg

On Saturday, I went for my monthly haircut. I go to a place simply titled "BARBER"... and that suits me just fine. No self-respecting man should go to any "stylist" or "hairdresser". Let's put it into perspective.... if you have a barber named Rocky.... you're doing great... if you have a "hairstylist" named Rocky... well, seriously... you're just paying too much for that haircut.

Anyway, after plunking down my $20 for my Northern Virginia barber shop cut, it made me long for the place I used to go to in Harrisonburg.... the Hair Corral. And, then I got to thinking about some of the random things I missed most about Harrisonburg. Here they are (in no particular order):

• Hair Corral: The Hair Corral is this barber shop located in the middle of nowhere. This really is a destination. A haircut costs a mere $6!!!! You can be big-pimping and tip an extra $4 and still walk out the door for $10... not too shabby. Now, the dilemma is that Hair Corral has about 20 barbers... of differing skill-level and ability. Upon entering you are faced with a row of about 10 barbers on your left and a row of about 10 barbers on your right. So, the big anxiety-inducing decision would be "do I go left or right?".... because... one wrong decision and you could get screwed over. Anyway, I seemed to always choose correctly and never had any issues.... but I had a few friends that got mangled.... and they would simply say: "I should have gone to the left" and we all knew what that meant. Hair Corral... I miss you!
• Roadside Chicken: Want the best freaking chicken you've ever tasted? Also want a wicked case of diarrhea? Well, look no further than the 'roadside' chicken sold in the 'burg throughout the year. I'm not sure what the deal is here or why chicken selling is such a cottage industry in the Valley... but, seriously.... if you are ever driving down 42 or 11 and see some dude selling foil-wrapped half-chicken for $3 that he pulls out of one of those igloo coolers.... stop... and buy it... or, better yet.. buy 20. Just make sure a toilet is nearby (but trust me.... any side effects are well worth it).
• Sharp Shopper: I love this crazy place.... and, in fact, Kelly and I can attribute (in large part) the financial solvency of the first 5 years of our marriage to Sharp Shopper. This is a "grocery" store run by Mennonites that sells a bunch of random stuff. If you never thought it was possible to purchase a humongous box of Cheerios for .99, well, you've never shopped at Sharp Shopper (the only catch is that the "Cheerios" and the label is written in crazy foreign lettering... usually Arabic). You could also get just expired Pillsbury Cookie Dough for .50 or countless other grocery items for less than a dollar. Actually, I'm not sure their price tag machine was capable of exceeding .99 cents. About a year before we left, Sharp Shopper greatly expanded and spent a great deal of time painting a red stripe all the way around the store and we all knew what that meant. In fact, every time I would walk in there, I would smile widely at the "Red Stripe of Savings" and be smiling even more as I walked out of there with a grocery cart full of pop tarts, cookie dough, milk, bread, eggs, etc for less than $20.
• The Green Valley Book Fair: This place is RIDICULOUS. First off, it's out in the boondogs... but it's HUGE.... two warehouses full of books.... and all of them are just insanely cheap. It only opens for certain times of the year. It's a business model that someone should be shot for thinking would work. I can just see the farmer now saying to his wife: "Mable... farming ain't just what it used to be. I'm going to clear out my barn and start selling a crap load of books for next to nothing and people will flock to me... even though we live in the middle of a corn field...and we'll be Rich!" Well, for whatever reason... it works (for the record, when I first heard of "electronic" mail in 10th grade business class, I recall thinking "what a STUPID" idea... so... what do I know). When it is open... it's a community event. Everybody goes. Kelly and I have bought more than our fair share of books here over the years and it kills me to buy a book at "retail" value up here knowing the Green Valley Book Fair probably has it.... and for only a couple of bucks.
• Taste of Thai: This is the best Thai food in America... period. End of Story. Order #23 with chicken and chicken fried rice and share with each other. I don't even know what #23 is called... but it's probably called un-freaking- believable. It could be called cat puke and I'd still order it... ya... it's that good. Seriously. Kelly and I have long referred to the 'host' as the "Fragile Flower" (w/all due credit to Brooke Chao) -- you'll have to go to find out why.

Okay.... so that's the 5 things I miss (for the purposes of this blog). Other things that come to mind are: happy hour at Calhouns, pizza at Luigi's (though I'm not an obsessive devotee), anything about Covenant Presbyterian Church, ice cream at Kline's Dairy Bar (Kelly is going to kill me for not going into detail about Klines), the apple orchards and the corn stands in the fall and having a BW3 right around the corner.

I have developed similar cult-like allegiance to a few places in Northern Virginia.... but, this post is already getting long... so, I'll save that for another day.