>There were also the opportunists. In 1954 I walked into a colonel's
>office in my winter blues, my collar open, and my tie pulled down,
>with a slip from the Infirmary permitting it: I had rosa barbarosa,
>or barber's itch -- a very painful rash from shaving. In 1968 thanks
>to the fashions of the '60s I could stop scarifying my face each
>a.m. and leave my shirt collar open. Twenty years of daily misery
>were at last over.
Barber's itch was commonly found on the back of the neck - the area that a barber shaves - and was responsible for much "redneck" credentialing. Talk about mimicking the peasantry.
Martin