June 30, 2008
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Ronnie Moore: 30 years of cuts and collectibles By Scott Wright Need a laugh? Want to hear a good joke? Then you might consider making a haircut appointment at the Custom House, because Ronnie Moore has got a million of 'em.Ronnie will have been in his little shop on Highway 68 in Cedar Bluff for exactly 30 years this Saturday, and he's collected a generation's worth of laughter on his walls along the way. “Most of this stuff I have accumulated over the past 15 years,” Ronnie says of the hundreds of display cases and novelty signs that cover the walls of his workspace and waiting area. “Probably 90 percent of it has been given to me. This past Tuesday, I got here and there was a Ronald McDonald doll lying against the door. I've got over 200 of them on display in here.” In between likenesses of clowns cartoon characters and other TV-themed novelties, Ronnie has a collection of small placards printed with jokes and humorous quotes that cover a broad range of subjects: “Dinner will be served at the sound of the smoke alarm,” reads one. Another: “If my ship ever comes in ... with my luck, I'll probably be at the airport.” Ronnie says he's done very little of the collecting himself, but adds that he's glad to spread the humor -- as long as the content is family-friendly. “I started with one little wall, and people would come in and say, 'I've got something at the house I bet you'd like,'” he explains. “Sometimes folks will bring in jokes I can't hang on the wall. I guess I need another room in the back for the adult jokes.” Ronnie says the donations “just sort of snowballed” over the years, from the jokes on the wall to collectibles such as cigarette lighters, stagecoaches, toy trains, and dolls. “Everyone used to have Ronald McDonald dolls, and now you can't find them anywhere,” he says. “Anytime someone brings me something I try to put it up. I had one guy who came back from Gatlinburg with something for the wall, said he thought of me when he saw it, whatever it was, and he bought it and brought it back to me.” Every once in a while, Ronnie says, some of his humorous signs rub customers the wrong way and wind up missing. “Someone stole my sign that said, 'Getting a degree from Auburn is so easy a caveman could do it,” he says with a laugh. “I don't know if it made them mad, or what, but somebody took it. So I made copies to pass around. Want one?” Moore, who began his career cutting hair nearly 50 years ago in the U.S. military, once worked at a barber shop near the campus of Auburn University. He also trimmed heads and shaved beards in Atlanta before moving to Cherokee County in 1975. His wife took a job at Union State Bank, then called Cedar Bluff Bank, and has been there ever since. She's branch manager, now. “During the recession in the mid-1970s, I decided we needed to get out of Atlanta, so I opened a barber shop at Gaylesville,” Ronnie says. “Then I moved to this location on the Fourth of July, 1978. And the rest is history.” While in Gaylesville, Ronnie helped establish the Gaylesville Volunteer Fire Department, and likes what he sees of the progress the county has made in that regard over the years. “I retired about a year ago,” he says. “You've got to have an idea of your limitations. Don't want to get anybody hurt. We started out with one old Army truck, with a 450-gallon tank. And I think, now, the county has very good fire protection.” Ronnie says he's thankful for help he's received from a lot of people through the years, but the contributions of one man will always stand out in his mind. “Hugh Young was a very, very good fellow,” he says. “He helped me build this shop when I first got started, and he was here on July 4, 1978 as I was finishing up. I told him to sit down and I'd give him the first haircut in my new place.” When Ronnie's 20th anniversary in Cedar Bluff rolled around, Young was back in the barber chair again. “We made arrangements and he met me down here when I opened on July 4,” Ronnie says. “The checks he paid me with are still up there on the wall, exactly 20 years apart. We were going to do it again for 30 years, but Hugh left us. That was sad. He was a good man.” Moore says his service is a no-frills affair, for the most part. He only charges $8 for a haircut, after all. But there is one specialized service he performs for long-time customers that he feels is quite unique. “Eight different times since I've been here, a man whose hair I first cut when he was a boy has brought his son back here to have his first hair cut,” Ronnie says. “The last man drove all the way from Cartersville, Ga. And I film those haircuts and put them on a DVD for them to keep and show their families.” Perhaps it isn't surprising that as much as Moore enjoys providing jokes for his customers to read, the Jessup, Ga. native isn't beyond telling a few knee-slappers he's written himself. “I tell everybody I'm the best barber in Cedar Bluff — best looking barber in Cedar Bluff, too,” he adds with a sly grin. How many barbers are there in Cedar Bluff? “Just me,” he replies with a wink, the smile spreading across his face. |