Pat Wheeler

DALLAS — It was my barber, Bobby Drake, who told me years ago that the hardest part about getting old is losing your friends.

So true, that statement, and now I mourn the loss of Bobby, the best barber a guy could ever want to have. He passed away early Monday morning after a brief but difficult bout with the heinous Coronavirus that shows no mercy for an 82-year-old man with diabetes.

I first met Bobby delivering local golf magazines at Brookhaven Country Club during the summer of 2011. A 54-hole facility in Farmers Branch just north of Dallas, Brookhaven was vintage “old school” at the time with a barbershop just down the hall from the men’s locker room. Having that boutique shop placed Brookhaven in the same category as Augusta National in Georgia, site of the Masters tournament.

The barber shop at Augusta National became well known in the early 1970s when word got out that a youthful Ben Crenshaw showed up for his first Masters with long blond locks fashionable during that era. Tournament czar during those years, Clifford Roberts, dropped a huge hint to Crenshaw while he was putting on the practice tee prior to the start of the tournament. Roberts told Crenshaw there was a barbershop in the clubhouse and that’s all it took to motivate the future two-time champion to get a significant trim before he teed off the next day.

Brookhaven modernized its approach and closed it barbershop about eight years ago but I followed Bobby to a new location at the corner of Marsh Lane and Forest Lane in North Dallas. Our friendship was already forged by then because when I first sat down at the shop at Brookhaven, I mentioned that I like my hair tapered in the back rather than blocked and that it was hard to find barbers who could do that. Bobby said no problem and I learned that first time that he knew how to cut hair. Keep in mind that I had read in a GQ magazine years ago that if a guy wants a tapered in the back haircut, he better look for an older barber, preferably one whose hand didn’t shake. Bobby’s never shook!

It was fun to chat with Bobby about his famous clients through the years since he started cutting hair as a young man in the early 1960s. Most recently, he talked of cutting Jordan Spieth’s hair when the PGA Tour star was a young boy learning the game at Brookhaven. But it was Bobby’s stories from his early days that mesmerized me.

Bobby said he once cut the hair of Texas golf legends Don January and Billy Maxwell. It was during his days at an eight-chair barber shop located in a shopping center on the corner of Forest Lane and Webbs Chapel Road, not far from his last shop. January and Maxwell both lived in that area at the time when both were winning on the PGA Tour.

Maxwell was a carousing buddy of the great Mickey Mantle during those halcyon days for both men. A US Amateur champion from Abilene, Maxwell was known for having a salty tongue. On this particular Saturday in May of 1962, Maxwell was leading the Dallas Open being played at Oak Cliff Country Club in South Dallas but heavy rains had cancelled play and now he was at the barber shop waiting for a haircut. He liked Bobby and waited for his chair to come open.

“The shop was full of people and everyone knew Billy and that he was leading the Dallas Open,” Bobby told me years ago. “So I was really nervous, and when I signaled for him, he started over and about halfway to my chair, he stopped and said loudly to everyone that I better not louse up his hair. I guess I did OK because he went on to win the tournament.”

It was Maxwell’s final of seven wins on tour in an often overlooked and underappreciated career.

About January, Bobby recalled another story. One day when the tall and angular January sauntered into the shop, he stopped at Bobby’s chair while he was giving a customer a straight razor shave.

“You sure are a brave man,” January whispered into the ear of Bobby’s client, eliciting laughter from those waiting their turn.

Now 91, both Maxwell and January are still telling stories that date back to their years of winning NCAA golf championships at the University of North Texas. Maxwell now lives in Florida but January was feted with a 90th birthday party in November of 2019 at a packed Egyptian Room at Campisi’s Restaurant in Dallas. I was grateful to be invited and given permission to bring Bobby. We had a great time visiting with January and his family and friends.

Bobby was a native of Longview, so we connected as two guys from East Texas. He married a beautiful young lady from Evant, in Central Texas, and enjoyed 55 years of marriage before his beloved Jean passed away in 2013.

“One time Jean was working in downtown Dallas, just before we were married, and a handsome young guy saw her and began to flirt and asked her to go to a movie,” Bobby said. “She told him she had a boyfriend and was going to marry me so Don Meredith just smiled and went on about his way.”

Bobby is survived by his daughter Shannon in Dallas, a sister in Louisiana that he visited during the Christmas break, a sister in Arkansas and a brother in Longview.

One day Bobby had some putters for sale. I bought two of the three for $10 each because Bobby said he was through playing the game. One was a Zebra putter similar to one January made a fortune using on the PGA Champions Tour in the early 1980s.

Before he gave up the game in his later years, Bobby played weekly with his biggest moment a hole-in-one at Brookhaven witnessed by member and friend Charley Pride, the wonderful country music singer who died in 2020 due also to the Coranavirus.

It seems barber shops are usually closed on Mondays so sometimes barbers will hook up with preachers on their day off and that’s what happened years ago to Bobby at Tenison Park, a famous 36-hole City of Dallas golf course near the Cotton Bowl.

“I played with these three preachers and we had a great time,” Bobby said. “As we were saying goodbyes, one of them asked me if I wanted to go to heaven or to hell. Well, of course I said heaven and he asked me if I wanted to be sure I was going and I said yes. So he asked me to pray and accept Jesus as my Savior and I did just that, right there, and never looked back.”

For the past five or so years, Bobby attended a Bible Study at Brookhaven on Friday mornings that I visited several times. It is often led by Don Dendy, a retired pastor who once worked with Billy Graham.

Bobby liked to tell people that he loved three things — Jesus, cutting hair and playing Texas Hold-’em. We laughed and agreed there was nothing wrong with that.

I am going to miss Bobby and will check on Norris, who shines shoes at the shop. The barbershop is a throwback to another time so there is also sadness for me about the passing of an era.

What comforts me is Bobby’s faith. He was a gentle soul. I have this sneaking suspicion that he is playing some Texas Hold-’em right now