I forgot to mention...

Above is a picture of my grandpa Andy, in his shop on 422 E. Weber St Stockton CA taken in 1962.

I forgot to mention in my last post that one of the more personal and inspiring moments of that day came upon my visit to Owen's Barber Shop on Cutting Boulevard in Richmond CA. You see I had done what I needed to do with my morning, which was getting through the red tape bureaucratic procedure to gain my first business license, going to skate around the skate park get coffee and wash the car. After this while heading home to work on my site I realized that having a weekday afternoon to get stuff done should not be spent A. indoors and B.working at a computer. This is when I decided to attack the streets. I had the list of barber shops in Contra Costa County printed out from a week ago in my back pocket...and I knew if there is one thing that's easy to find when driving around, maybe more than corporate colorways and identities, is the red and blue barber pole...which truly is as useful now as it was the day they invented it.

So I hit the first shop I saw, where I quickly got shut down...the barber like the idea of hitting barbers shops to push my stuff is smart but then claimed he was not into the Raiders as a team and would therefore not support me in my cause...I conceded that am I also not a Raiders fan by any means...and the shirt does NOT have a Raiders logo...it's a Barbers logo...he was not buying it. I crossed him off the list I kept in my back pocket.

So I continued into Richmond with a left onto Cutting Blvd...as I had seen Owen's shop many times while on my morning commute. This was where while explaining that my grandfather and great grandfather were lifelong barbers and this is why this project means more to me then just another brand of clothing...and why I am targeting barbers, hoping they will dig it, one of the Barbers asked where my grandpa's shop was. I quickly replied, the first shop was in Oklahoma, and then my grandfather opened his own in Stockton California. Well it turns out this guy grew up in Stockton, which is not out of the ordinary...although him asking me where the shop was is where the conversation started to get interesting. I told him downtown, and he thought for a second while sitting in one of the un-used barber chairs leaning back looking up, and then he looked at me and said was it on Weber...well as a matter of fact it was.

That was interesting, and maybe for me it's more personal and meaningful...but the coincidental moment seemed more like a a strange destined point in my life, it helped me through the day...getting denied all along the way...selling that 1 shirt at the very last shop I went to...I knew it was not going to be easy, and welcome a challenge.