Issue link: https://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/722088
27 Operations Lineman Judson Danner, who has worked 17 years for the company, and Appliance Sales Rep Robin Long, who for the past year has met customers once a week on a rotating basis with the Enterprise and Geneva stores. "In high school, all I could think about was getting away," says Bedsole, who moved to Montana for a year before getting homesick and returning to Florala. "Everyone knows everyone here and looks out for each other. It can be a blessing and a curse." Shave and a Haircut … If anyone around here knows everyone, it would be J.B. "Johnny" Clary, who has been cutting hair in the same old-fashioned chairs in Cobb's Barber Shop on 5th Avenue since 1959. He charged $2 when he started – the price is $8 today. Clary, 80, was born just across the Florida line in Laurel Hill but has lived in Florala 63 years. On a quiet Thursday morning, Chris Rivera, 29, is doing something he's done as long as he can remember, even though he doesn't live in Florala. "I come here every summer, every holiday I'm in town. He cut my grandfather James Foley's hair as well." "James was a good fella," Clary says. "I thought the world of him." Rivera says until a recent remodeling, the shop sporting a traditional red and white rotating barber's pole outside the entrance has never changed. He finds comfort in the familiarity of the barber and the shop, sitting in a chair that once dwarfed Rivera. "It feels more like a man's barber shop," Rivera says. "You go somewhere else, it's $20 and you don't get a razor on the back of your neck and all these extras." "What you think about the hair?" Clary asks, holding a mirror behind Rivera's head. "That looks real, real good," Rivera says, handing Clary a $10 bill and telling him to keep the change. Clary says most of his old friends have died but he still cuts the hair of a 97-year-old who has been with him since the start. Clary keeps coming in three days each week to service more customers. "I tried quitting but I've worked all my life and it's just a hard thing to face," Clary says. He had other jobs through the years that paid more in Amanda Caraway gives customer Dan Hagerty a trim at Cobb's Barber Shop. James Cobb combs 4-year-old Jack Caraway's hair (inset). Danner, Bedsole in local APC office. Photos by Meg Mcnney