As the 20th century begins wrapping up its affairs, an emerging pattern is for people to experience one or two career changes along the way. The pace of innovation demands at least some of us make career adjustments before retiring. But it has not been so for Jim McKeever. Nor his father. Nor his grandfather. This trio has engaged in the barbering profession for more than a century, with Jim accounting for 55 of them.

A barber's odyssey began for the young McKeever in Ola, Ark., between Little Rock and Fort Smith. At 15 he came to Abilene's Camp Barkeley to cut hair while finishing high school. He is at Southwest Park Barber Shop these days, as he has been for 45 years, maintaining regular hours and a wonderful sense of humor and history, a sample of which he shared recently with a curious customer.

"My father operated the barber shop in Ola, which is in Yell County. At 13, I began working after school and on Saturdays. My job was to shave the old men who came in for their weekly face scraping. My father had decided that only after a year of shaving would I be allowed to cut hair.

"Well, we had this fine old fellow in town named Lije Richardson. That was probably short for Elijah. He was in his 70s, a retired barber and former partner in my father's shop. Everyone called him Uncle Lije. Whenever he got a shave, Uncle Lije would repeat his request.

" 'Now, Jimmy, I want to be the person who gets your first haircut. Don't give anybody a haircut until you give me your first one. Don't forget, Jim, I'm the one you practice on first!'

"Everyone in town knew Uncle Lije was to bear the brunt of my first hair assault, and excitement began to build as the time approached.

"The year of shaving apprenticeship finally ended, and my father decided the time had come for me to learn to cut hair. Uncle Lije was summoned, and I started cutting. It was awful. When I finished, that poor man's hair looked like he had been attacked with a weed whacker. There were gaps and ridges all over his head. It had to have been the worst haircut in the history of Arkansas.

"After I completed the desecration, Uncle Lije got out of the barber chair and walked over to the mirror. He cocked his head this way and that. But there was no angle and no amount of head cocking which could improve that haircut. Timidly, I asked for his assessment.

" 'Uncle Lije, how does it look?' He peered hard into the glass. 'Well, Jimmy, I'd say that this is a pretty good West Texas haircut.'

"I had never been to West Texas -- never been outside Arkansas. I knew absolutely nothing about that region and certainly did not understand what relationship my first haircut, bad as it was, had with West Texas.

" 'Uncle Lije, exactly what is a West Texas haircut?

" 'Well, Jimmy, it's a haircut that has so many gaps and holes and notches and ridges in it that you can screw your hat down on your head and even that strong West Texas wind can't blow it off!'

"Little did I know I would soon move to Abilene with my father and start working at Camp Barkeley. Only after getting here and feeling the West Texas wind blow did I realize how really bad a West Texas haircut is."

One could wish that as a society we would nurture all our children the way Ola, Ark., nurtured Jim McKeever. "Uncle Lije" Richardson and hundreds of others had to endure many painful shaves and West Texas haircuts before Jim was sufficiently skilled to move to Abilene and work at Camp Barkeley. But Ola's investment helped produce a Jim McKeever who not only is a first class barber, but also embodies all the qualities we envision in the word "class."

May his number increase.