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A little off the top: Leo Moore retires
Now, at the age of 91 and two-thirds as he called it, Moore has decided to hang up his clippers. Coca-Cola's cost about 50 cents and the last haircuts he gave were six dollars. "I never imagined when I started that there would be six dollar haircuts," he said. But concern for his wife Eugenia's health and an ailing knee convinced Moore that he needed to stay at home. "Due to my wife's health and my age, after 70 years in my profession, I am compelled to give it up," he wrote in a note given to the Times. "So as I do so I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all my customers both short and long term, for your business over the years. I appreciate each one and will always have a lot of good memories of serving you." Moore's seen a lot of changes from the time he started. After graduating from high school in 1934 during the depression, Moore said "there was nothing to do," so he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps where he worked for about 18 months in Mississippi. After that he went to work for his uncle, a barber in Thomasville. He worked for his uncle for eight years before being drafted by the Army in 1944. His skill with the clippers kept him out of front-line service and sent him to Milwaukee, Wis. Where he was the barber for the guards at a military prison. After his stint in the Army, Moore worked with his uncle again and worked for a while in Selma before coming back to Thomasville in 1949 and opening his own barber shop, next door to The Thomasville Times. There he worked his trade for almost 50 years before selling the shop to Ken Johnson, but Moore continued working. "I've enjoyed getting to know the people and it's been good to me, if I had to do it over again, I think I would," he said. The price of haircuts and sodas weren't the only things that changed during his time. Moore recalled the days of two trains making stops in Thomasville and the Gunn brothers who were living references guides to the town that people nearly always came to for information on the town. "But after I'd been here so long, people started coming to me," he laughed. The barber shop served a social function too, for storytelling and for showing off hunting and fishing successes. "There's been a lot of deer and turkeys brought to that shop," Moore said. And of the tales told there, Moore would only say "that'll have to be another book." So much was the barbershop a cornerstone of social life then that it would often stay open until after nightfall on Saturdays as men would stop by to get a haircut or socialize. There were the town drunks and the one police officer with a hickory stick. And then there was Mally Jackson. Jackson was one of Thomasville more colorful characters of the past. He directed traffic over the railroad tracks at Wilson Avenue. He would get a shave from Moore once a week. Moore never charged him. One of the railroad workers would send Moore money every Christmas to get Jackson a gift.
Although the Walker Springs native admits he didn't care too much for Thomasville when he first arrived more than 70 years ago, he's changed his mind since then. "Thomasville's been very good to me. You won't find better people anywhere, and I have some of the best neighbors in the world. Every time I've left Thomasville, I have wanted to get back."
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