Local barber loves to ballroom dance, stay active

Photo: Kayla Collins

ED THE BARBER— Edgar Damon loves to cut hair. He has owned Ed's Barber Shop on Main Street in Norway for 54 years. Here, he cuts the hair of Jim Richardson, who has been a customer of Damon's for 20 years.

NORWAY — Local barber Edgar Damon, 54 years in the business, says the only thing he loves as much as cutting hair is staying active by ballroom dancing.

"I dance every week," he said. "I do ballroom."

Damon has owned Ed's Barber Shop on Main Street in Norway since 1958. He grew up in West Paris and lived there for 40 years. Now, he lives in Norway.

"I like working for myself, and I like the people," said Damon.

"That's why I'm still working," he chuckled.

Every Saturday evening, when Damon has time off, he can be spotted at the American Legion in Paris, ballroom dancing with his wife, Beverly, whom he met as a teenager.

In fact, the two met at a dance, he said.

"Well, that's who I take," he said, about Beverly. "I dance with a lot of other ladies, because they've lost their husbands and we've known them for years. Beverly is really good about it."

The couple has been married for 58 years. "We were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school," he said.

Damon said that ballroom dancing has just come naturally to him.

"I picked it up over the years," he said. "It's just like a big family, the dance is. You see all the people you are used to seeing. We visit with them, and some people come from 100 miles away. They've become good friends." 

Damon graduated from the West Paris High School, now known as Agnes Gray Elementary School, in 1953. He immediately began working at the Oxford woolen mill, and spent every morning working on his family farm.

Damon is one of 12 kids.

"You get right up in the morning and work until after dark every night," he said about growing up on the farm. "I could milk cows when I was six years old. I've always done hard work."

But Damon said that he only worked at the mill for a short time, however, after discovering he had a passion for cutting hair.

As a kid, he also enjoyed playing sports, including basketball, baseball, and occasionally, football.

"The kids used to come over from school at night and we'd have a ball game right on our meadow," he said.

As far as work went, Damon said that he didn't want to be a plumber, an electrician, or a farmer.

"I didn't really want to do that. I was thinking of some type of job that I'd like to do for the rest of my life, and I came up with barbering," he said.

So, Damon enrolled at the Hanson's Barber School in Lewiston, which he said was the only hair school in the state at the time. 

He also spends his free time cutting wood in his backyard.

"I cut my own wood," said Damon, who is 76 years old. "I just got done cutting 21 trees."

But even though it's something he enjoys doing, he said it isn't something he'd be able to make a living at.

Damon, who has a camp on Pennesseewassee Lake, said that in the winter, his favorite thing to do is go snowmobiling in his dooryard.

He also likes to spend time with his family, including his two sons and four grandchildren, barbecuing at the lake in the summer.

While he loves to snowmobile, he said that summer is his favorite season.

"I like the lakes. I like the peace and quiet," he said. "We also water ski, swim, boat."

"And talking," said Tina Alexander, who has worked with Damon at the barber shop since March of 2011.

Damon laughed.  "You have to, in order to do this stuff," he said, referring to his business, which, as far as the location, has changed drastically over the years.

"On Friday nights, people used to park their cars out here around 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, then come back to them around 5 o'clock and watch the people. Main Street used to just be a mass of people," he remembers. "Now at 4 o'clock we go home, and back then it was 9 o'clock."

Damon said that on Friday nights, people used to travel from miles away just to hang out on Main Street.

"Friday night was a big night here in town," he said. "They'd eat at the restaurant across the street, and walk the streets, and shop the stores," like J.J. Newberry's and Wilson's, which "they used to call 10-cent stores," he explained. "It was like K-mart."

According to Damon, while business overall has slowed, most of his customers have stayed true to him.

"Some people have been coming here, since I started, " he said, "and their children, and even their children."

In the '70s, Damon even won the Golden Shear Award at a hair cutting competition in Boston. But that's not surprising, considering Damon's love for what he does.

"We all had 20 minutes to operate," he said, as he trimmed the hair of loyal customer, Jim Richardson of Paris. "We had to compete against people from other states." 

Richardson has been getting his hair cut by Damon for the past 20 years and said he doesn't plan on getting his hair cut anywhere else. 

Neither does Damon. In fact, Damon is at the shop cutting hair nearly every single day.

And, just as he is loyal to his job, he said the same is true about ballroom dancing.

"I've danced for years," said Damon. "I don't miss any Saturday nights."