When I tell my kids that my dad used to give me $1 and I would go get him some cigarettes and a paper and have change back when I was like 8 or 9 they are aghast. Mostly because an 8 year old could buy cigarettes but then because that transaction is more like $6-7 now.
There was a barbershop in downtown Athens where I used to get my hair cut as a kid. It wasn't on the square but I think it was on one of the streets that made up the square. They had a machine like that one. The machine was calibrated for nickel, they charged a dime. There was a small sign right beside that hole for caps where they asked you to put the extra nickel.
Sounds like "Bob's Barber Shop". Had the old timey striped pole outside? Run by Bob Davis and later his son, I believe. I believe there was a hardware store near his shop - UG White maybe?
I vaguely remember the barber pole, so it may be Bob's. I'll have to ask.
I remember those old men playing checkers under the trees. They were doing it back in the 60s I know. Old men sitting on the courthouse square (I think Jim Reeves had a song "Jimbo Jenkins" about that). I also remember the Confederate soldier memorial....and I remember when that Court House still had a sign for the "Colored" water fountain. This was mid-60s - probably a few years before you remember it. It was a different world back then. Some good, some not so good...
That's a nice little walk. A couple of miles at least. I may have seen your grandad when I was young. Probably did.
While retired he used to mow lawns on that side of town; several a week. He'd walk to them pushing a Craftsman lawn mower, Briggs and Stratton, made from steel. Gawd I hated that thing...while it's overgrown, you can see the size of the lot I had to cut there on Sunset—had to be an acre. It looks like they still have a shed where his used to be; it was a concrete floor back then.
I know that general area. It was out a ways from where we hung out. That was out to the SW of town I think. We were up north on Houston St - right across from the elementary school. North Town they called it - and not in a flattering way LOL. Some poor and tough kids up there.
We were very close between Lily Flagg/Weatherly area between Whitesburg and Baily Cove
I still find it pretty wild talking with someone who very likely sat in the same chair as I did, almost a half of a century ago, getting a haircut. Or, as the conversation went, the same stool at a drug store to get a drink.