"You need a machine for that," a customer jokes.

"Nah, I need the exercise," Cooper replies while dusting the sprinkles of freshly clipped hair off the customer's neck with a brush.

The jokes and bantering come easy for the 47-year barber.

"Just look at some of his haircuts ... you know he's been talking," jokes customer Doyle Olson, while waiting his turn at Mort's Barber Shop in Ottawa.

Olson has entrusted Cooper with cutting his hair for about 35 years -- although there's not much left to cut, Olson jokes, while pulling up his hat to prove his point.

While conversation comes easy for the 67-year-old Mort, standing on his feet for hours at a time no longer does.

That's why the longtime barber is hanging up his clippers.

"For the most part, it's health reasons," Cooper said.

It's been a long ride for Cooper, who said it's the only job he's ever had.

The comment sparked another jab from the peanut gallery.

"Hey, you didn't tell her about the gambling," Olson interjects, laughing.

Several customers seemed surprised Wednesday after learning Cooper's last day will be Saturday.

But that doesn't mean the end for the barbershop, which will remain open under different ownership.

Larry Thomas, son of former Ottawa Mayor Jim Thomas, watched Cooper's techniques closely Wednesday, trying to remember what each of the customers preferred.

Most of Cooper's customers are retirees, and have been loyal clients for years. He's watched boys grow into men, fathers and then grandfathers.

Cooper has never taken appointments, just walk-ins. The small, square barbershop has changed little since Cooper opened it in 1971. The walls are wood panel, a diamond-shaped Dr Pepper clock hangs above a row of several chairs while various business cards and newspaper photos of his nieces and nephews hang on another wall.

Cooper pulls a small black-and-white photo off the wall next to the sink, points to the 40 smiling men and explains these are his classmates from the Peoria Barber College.

Unfortunately, for Cooper, he has watched his trade begin to die off during the past 25 years or so, and he is the lone student in the photo still working in the field.

"It's getting obsolete," he said. "I don't really know the answer."

But Cooper has his own theories, of course.

"The biggest thing is we need our own insurance and our own retirement plan. I'm single so I can do it, but if I was married, it would be pretty tough."

Only three barbershops are located in Ottawa, and all are part-time businesses. When he started in 1959, Cooper said there were 40 shops in town.

Saturday nights were the busiest times, when men wanted to look good for dates or get a shave before church. At that time, haircuts were just $1.25.

Barbers also have lost business from much of the younger population.

"They either go to the beauty salons or don't get hair cuts," Cooper said. "Most go for the hair styles rather than the man haircut."

Asked what a "man haircut" was, Cooper replied, "Short ... clippers on the side, you know."

The decline in barbershop business can be attributed to different eras of, well ... hair, explained Cooper.

First, there was the "yippies and hippies," as Cooper calls it, or the Woodstock era.

Then it was the Beatles and Vietnam era. "The kids were rebelling, and they wouldn't get their hair cut or shave," he said.

Thomas, who is set to take over Jan. 2, added many men also don't like walking into a salon.

"I think a lot of men don't want to smell acrylic nails ... they want to come in, get their hair cut and go about their business," Thomas said. "Men come to a barbershop because it's a barbershop."

Cooper also offers something unique for a $9 haircut ($8.50 for retirees 62 or older):

"I'm the only guy who will shave around the ears," he said, pointing to bottles he uses to mix the latherizer.

Cooper greets his customers by name Wednesday morning, and as they ease into the old, mustard-yellow chair, Cooper ties a smock in front of them and goes to work -- without having to ask: "What would you like done today?"

He just readies the clippers and goes to work, already knowing what they want.

Ask Cooper why he thinks customers keep coming back and he'll smile and say, "the bologna."

Politics, weddings, grandchildren -- you name it, Cooper's customers talk about it.

"Every customer has got something different to talk about," Cooper said over the buzz of electric clippers.

Growing up in a family with six children made it seem as if college were impossible for Cooper. But his father, who worked as a technician for Illinois Power, encouraged his son to attend barber school. He even offered to pay his son's way.

It was an offer Cooper couldn't refuse.

"He told me, 'It's a clean job. And you're inside,'" Cooper recalled his father saying.

Cooper completed his 1,872 hours at the college as well as his apprenticeship, and took his first job at Silagy's, which was next to the Roxy Theater, until about 1962, when he was drafted by the Army. When he returned, he and a partner remodeled a grocery store on La Salle Street into a barbershop, where he stayed from 1968 to 1971.

Thomas, who also graduated from the Peoria Barber College and spent his most recent years in the real estate business in Arizona, said his father, who also was a barber, inspired him to enter the trade, although he wasn't his father's biggest fan when he was a child.

"Everyone else had long hair and we had crew cuts."