Dan Huckins comes into 2-1/2 Happy Barbers as he has every month for a decade. Huckins is a quick-witted senior who prefers the barbershop experience to salons. He lives on Phinney Ridge, but makes the trek across to the Ballard barbershop anyway.

"You trying to stay out of trouble?" Barber Scott Ommen says to his customer.

"I'm trying to, but it ain't easy," Huckins says, easing into one of the shop's vintage green leather barber chairs.

Like a matador, Ommen swoops a hair cape around Huckins and whirls into action, comb and razor in hand. Huckins lucked out by inheriting his mother's genes for a full head of thick, wavy hair. The "silver fox" says his two sons are envious. He chuckles, "They want to kill me." He has been going to barbers all his life. His own grandfather was a barber and blind. "He could cut hair just by the feel of it."

The shop is a one-room, brightly lit mirrored platform for hair cutting. Floral-patterned curtains mange to be homey yet masculine, and they are about the most feminine touch in the shop. Ommen prefers it that way. It's a manly man's hang-out.

The room's dominating features are the two '40s-era Kokon barbershop chairs. They are durable and surprisingly comfortable. There is a lever on one side that releases the backrest into a reclining position, the position used for facial shaves. The chair's footrest is built of stainless steel. For added comfort, the footrest can be flipped to a padded side.

Old-fashioned barber products are perched in view on the counter top. Ommen picks up a bottle of Bay Rum Fragrant Skin toner:

"All the old people just love this," he says.

The toner, created in 1897, is applied to the skin as a body rub or aftershave. It's a soothing reply to a straight-edge razor shave. It can be applied to the back of the neck and face. Vintage tonic.

Ommen opens the top drawer of the counter and pulls out a collection of straight-edged razors, the kind that fell out of use because of the liability involved in handling them. They are easily sharp enough to slice into a neck. Ommen demonstrated the proper way to hold the razor, grasping it by the heel, a small u-shaped piece of metal located at the base of the razor, which gives the barber control.

"Barbers will last if they are good," Ommen says. "They have to know how to cut with clip and comb." He refers to a barber's technique that is rarely used anymore. "They taper up the back and sides, take a whole bunch off the back and leave holes like this," he says, jesting with Huckins.

His customer dishes back, complaining about the colic at the back of his head. He wishes Ommen would take it out. Ommen leaves it be.

"Here's the thing," Huckins says. "Over the years, barbers have lost out because of the long hair. I've always liked my hair short because it is more comfortable. And as long as this young man cuts it right and doesn't screw up . . . I'll keep coming back." They both laugh.

And "young man" is accurate for Ommen, just 27 years old. He has been cutting hair for nine years and worked his way to opening his own barber shop. Ommen learned the trade working along side his father at a barbershop in Magnolia. He becomes sentimental for a moment, reminiscing about his father, describing the banter they would trade with each other and customers as they cut hair.

A big part of the barbershop culture is the chit-chat. "You got to love to talk to people," explains Ommen. "See, that's why people come into the barbershop, because they can give it back and forth to me. That's part of the business."

Though Ommen's clients range from kids to senior citizens, seniors constitute the majority of his business.

"They have been coming to barbers their whole [lives] and that's what they are used to," Ommen says. "You get to know them well and then they pass on. It's sad."

That's one thing he dislikes about the business, saying good-bye to a generation. It is hard to keep the barbershop tradition going with younger men. And barber shops are nothing if not tradition.

The word "barber" is derived from the Latin word "barba," meaning beard. In ancient times, the barber had a very important role in the community; people believed good and bad spirits entered through the hairs on top of the head and could only be released by cutting those hairs. Barbers were a kind of medicine man and priest. Clergymen enlisted barbers when bloodletting. Draining blood from a person's body was a popular method of attempting to cure illness. The idea was that the escaping blood would take the disease with it.

The practice of bloodletting continued until 1163 when The Council of Tours, a medieval Roman Catholic Church committee, ruled that it was sacrilege for a clergyman to draw blood from humans. Such acts were then left solely to barbers. Barbers, also known as surgeons, thrived and quickly expanded on their reputations by including dentistry into their practice.

It was back in those good ol' bloodletting days that the concept of the familiar barber pole came about. The spiraling red, white and blue ribbons, often mistaken for a patriotic symbol, actually represented the bandaging that would wrap around a person's arm during bloodletting. One band was twisted around the arm before bleeding, and the other band was used to bind the arm afterward.

Thankfully there was no bleeding or binding needed after Ommen brushed off the fallen hair from Huckins's neck, and got his customer's approval for a job well done. Dapper and ready to greet the evening, Huckins makes his way to the door, then with a wide grin, turns back to make one last parting comment: "I come to the barber shop because I feel better when I'm well groomed. Don't you?"

2-1/2 Happy Barber's is in Ballard at 6412 24th Avenue NW.