Behind the barber pole in Gleed, Washington

GLEED, Wash. -- Ted Hosman will charge you $8 for the haircut.

But he doesn't charge for the jokes, the stories and the community news you get at his barbershop in Gleed. All that's free and, as with much in life, you get what you pay for.

That means the jokes are sometimes bad, the stories possibly true and the community news -- well, it may or may not be exactly accurate.

That's how it is at Hosman's barbershop, the way it has always been since Ted's father, Oden Hosman, opened the place in 1946. But there's no telling how much longer it will stay that way.

A barber pole is the only indication the aging cinder block building across the street from Curly's Bar and Grill is a barbershop. A hand-lettered sign in one window notes the hours.

There's no business sign or a telephone. If someone wants to know the name of his shop, the 73-year-old Hosman says, "I just tell them it's a barbershop in Gleed."

The small space is cluttered. A cactus plant sits atop a stack of clean towels on a second barber chair that was used by his father until he stopped barbering in 1980, two months before he died. A police scanner and television share space on a bright green desk in one corner. A half dozen cans of smokeless tobacco are stacked high on a shelf.

Photos, mostly of Ted fishing, are taped up on the mirror. A copy of an X-ray from Hosman's ankle surgery hangs on the back of the front door. Five well-worn, vinyl-covered black armchairs are for waiting customers.

On the other side of the shop's back wall is the now-defunct Gleed post office. Oden Hosman got the post office to open there in 1953, and he and his wife, and occasionally Ted, ran it. The post office closed in 1998, and the space is now used for storage. Ted keeps a coffee pot there and makes numerous trips to the pot throughout the day, using a faded yellow coffee cup to drink more than a pot's worth each day. "I drink too much of the stuff," he grumbles.

Oden Hosman commanded his son to attend barber school at the end of Ted's freshman year at Naches Valley High School. Less than a year later Ted started working for his father after school and on Saturdays.

"I had no say" in career choice, Hosman says.

Now, after more than 56 years of barbering, he says, "I've had no thought about doing anything different. I don't know why. Dumb, I guess."

'Now what am I doing here?" he asks Jase Testerman as Testerman settles into the barber's chair on a June afternoon.

Hosman doesn't need to ask, really. He's been cutting Testerman's hair since before the 25-year-old was in high school. "Before they get out of the car I know what they want," the barber says of his longtime customers.

Testerman is part of the loyal and large following Hosman has built since he began cutting hair in the first week of April 1954.

Steve Stiles, 58, has been going to Hosman for 40 years. Tom Allan, 34, is the third generation of the Allan family to have his hair cut by Hosman. And Jim Hand first had his hair cut there when he moved to Gleed 18 years ago.

Mel Lewis used to live a mile from the barbershop and had his hair cut first by Hosman's father beginning in 1975. Though he's since moved to Wiley City, Lewis makes the drive north to Gleed so he can get his haircuts from Hosman.

And then there are the stories. Like the one Hosman tells about the local fellow who got into trouble for driving drunk. To avoid driving, he began riding a bicycle to Curly's. "Then the man got so drunk he had to walk his bike home," says Hosman.

Or the story that involves a friend going fishing, false teeth and buying a pint of whiskey in an Oregon town the size of Selah. Hosman often starts the stories
with "You know this is the honest truth ... "

Ted's stories are sometimes off-color but, he says, "I try not to cuss in front of women."

"He's got the best stories," says Testerman. You get Ted and three or four locals together and it's just lies, lies, lies."

Hosman admits his stories may not be completely true. "There is some basis of truth in all of them," he says, adding that "it's all in fun."

He banters with most of his customers, putting them at ease like an old family friend.

"Your mother used to drink a little bit of whiskey, didn't she? She liked her whiskey?" he asks a familiar customer one June afternoon. And to another Hosman says, "Don't expect me to come to your funeral if it's in the afternoon. I'd lose a whole day's work."

The ribbing is all in good fun and belies the bond that's developed between Hosman and his faithful customers.

Besides being his barber, says Stiles, "He's a good friend, too. I value his friendship. He's always been there for me."

But age and the passing of time are starting to catch up with Hosman. And he isn't sure how much longer he will continue to barber. One ankle was operated on not quite two years ago, prompting Hosman to cut back his hours.

Now "the other one needs work too," Hosman says. He walks slowly, winces occasionally in pain as he moves around his shop and drives the quarter-mile from his house to the barbershop in an old pickup once owned by the U.S. Forest Service.

His wife of 53 years, Katie, is in poor health, too.

"When she gets sick, I'll go home and take care of her. I'd just close (the shop) up," Hosman says.

"But right now I'm just enjoying the hell out of barbering and it's still fun."