After more than three decades as a hairdresser in Wauneta, Nancy Noble has turned in her scissors for perhaps the only job she likes more: grandmother.
    Noble, 60, closed Country Clipper June 20. She had operated the shop since Aug. 1, 1988.
    “My youngest son was four years old when I opened,” operating Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, she said. But about five years ago, the business began to slow down and by this year, she was open only Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
    Plus, the years of working standing up were beginning to catch up with her.
    “My feet have told me I had to get off [them] probably seven, eight years ago. Lately, my hands have been giving me fits; using a flat iron was next to impossible.”
    Plus, her children needed help looking after their own kids in Lincoln. Since both of Noble’s own parents died last year, she no longer had to take care of her mother, freeing her up to be a full-time grandmother.
    Given all those factors, retiring wasn’t really a difficult decision, she said.
    “I’m very much a family person. My first granddaughter was born five years ago. I wanted to just go and be with my grandkids.” With two other hair places now operating in Wauneta, “my business wasn’t as strong as it used to be and my heart was in Lincoln,” Noble said.
    Not that she won’t miss her customers.
    “I do miss the conversations with my ladies,” she said. “We probably solved all the problems of the world 100 times over. My ladies were the sweetest in the world and I learned so much from them.”

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