CINCINNATI — Darren Gamble is walking back toward his RV. It’s parked in the Villages at Roll Hill, near where he grew up.
A woman leans out of her car and curses at him.
“Are you the dude that does haircuts?”
Gamble turns around and smiles.
“Hell yeah,” the woman shouted again. “Keep going.”
WATCH: Cincinnati man explains why he cuts hair in his RV
Inside the RV, there’s a lawn chair and a cooler. Of course, there’s also a barber chair.
“Home is where you park it” is written on the walls.
Gamble, who goes by Dinero Cuts professionally, started cutting his own hair when he was 10. A few years later, he began cutting his friends. I first met Gamble in Over-the-Rhine, where I was reporting a story about a street photographer documenting what he called "the real Cincinnati."
“I had a dream,” Gamble told me. “I just wanted to be a famous mobile barber.”
When I ask him if that dream involved an RV, he laughs.
“Not at all,” Gamble said. “Never thought I’d be an RV owner.”
For him, the RV is about more than cutting hair. It’s an opportunity to show people anything is possible — even if your story doesn’t have the best beginning.
“I’ve been shot,” Gamble said. “And I had guns pulled out on me. I had a gun pointed in my face and the person squeezed the trigger. The gun just never went off.”
He says his family lost everything in an apartment fire when he was 12. And tells me that sent him down a bad path.
“You got to start over sometimes,” Gamble said. “Pick up the pieces.”
For him, that meant recommitting to his passion. This time, with an RV. Something that allows him to cut hair at nursing homes. Something he used to do free back-to-school haircuts this summer.
A way to connect with young people who may be facing some of the same struggles he did.
“I’m not saying it’s easy,” Gamble said. “But it’s possible.”
