I wish I could go back to Jack’s.

When I was a kid Dad always took me to Jack’s Barber Shop to get my hair cut. Jack was a grizzled old school barber, the sort you could always count on to be unfailingly kind but whom you’d never dream of crossing. By the time of my patronage in the 90’s, Jack had been cutting hair for decades, and not much about his shop had changed for the time that had passed - he even had a soda vending machine that dispensed glass bottles. When Dad was feeling charitable he’d dig some change out for me to get one. I had no idea how much I took for granted the satisfaction of gripping those bottle necks and hearing the wet clack of glass as my choice’s queued compatriots shifted behind him.

Since it was the 90’s in a small town, unless you were content to shield yourself behind a months-old issue of Motor Trend you were probably going to get drawn into waiting room conversation. Jack was the sort who’d dispense a bit of wisdom when the opportunity was right, but he wasn’t the sort to hold court, so conversation was usually fairly organic and depended almost entirely upon the characters who decided to thwack-ching the bell on Jack’s door that day.

As you might assume, I was typically a spectator in these conversations. I got a few surface level inquiries from time to time soliciting my name or age or my opinion about how the day was going before their gaze shifted up to Dad where it would largely remain. And so I sat at the periphery while the men around me chatted about national politics, or weather we’d just experienced, or a vehicle parked on the street outside the shop, or weather we were set to experience, or the know-nothings down at city hall.

Until the new guy showed up.

I assume he was new; he at least didn’t get hailed upon his arrival by memory. He wasn’t cut from the same cloth a lot of Jack’s usual clientele were - the farmers, the tradesmen, the retirees. With his business casual outfit and wire-rimmed glasses, he quietly distinguished himself from the others in the shop at a glance. He didn’t seem to feel out of place, though; he had a comfort level that suggested he’d grown up locally and come back after college, or that he was the sort who’d be comfortable anywhere.

He struck up a conversation with me that went past the usual perfunctory questions. I wish I could recall more of it, but what I do remember is the feeling of being seen. I was an old enough boy to have a deep craving for a sense of belonging with that group of men. I wanted to be included among conversation around the invisible camp fire in the middle of that barber shop, and this man was extending a hand of invitation simply by asking my opinions about things.

And then it came: mention of my spelling skills. I’m assuming this was shortly after my having won the regional spelling bee in the third grade. Yes, for one bright and shining moment in time, I could objectively spell better than any other nine-year-old in southwest Missouri. My efforts to somehow monetize this success continue.

Of course my boasting had the effect anyone with two ounces of foresight could have anticipated: my being tested with some tricky word or another. The one this gentleman settled on - perhaps after deeming antidisestablishmentarianism a touch out of my reach - was Pennsylvania.

This was it. My chance to shine. I was on the chair by that point, and started my attempt.

“P-E-N…”

Okay, first swerve, two N’s, you’ve got this…

“N-S…”

Oh dear, here’s the tricky bit. It sounds like it should be an ‘I,’ but I remember from the map it should be a…

“Y-L-V…”

Vain, I know how to spell vain…

“A-I-N-A.”

Wait. Vain-ah? That doesn’t seem right. Oh no!

But the deed was done. I’d misspelled it.

The man was gracious. He assured me there was an even chance he’d misspell it himself if the task was foisted on him like it was me. And yes, I beat myself up in the moment. But the perspective of time has taught me something:

He gave me an opportunity.

He patted the log at the camp fire, and it made such an impression on me that I recall it with fondness over 30 years later. It’s easy to dismiss the thought life of kids as being entirely foreign to the “real world,” and to be fair, sometimes it is. I regularly mystified the elders around me with my musings and imaginative scenarios. However, there comes a point, assuredly at different times for different kids, when they start feeling a longing to belong. It takes discernment to see, but if you can speak into that space at the right time, there are dividends to be had in opportunities to mentor, shape, and guide their thoughts and their steps.

I lost my way on the way to Pennsylvania. but I found a place at the fire.

And that was exactly where I wanted to be.