NORWICH — For the past decade, Jay Rimmel could count on his roughly once-a-month trip to Diane’s Casual Cuts to double as both a much-needed trim and a therapeutic session.

That’s because Rimmel’s stylist, Laura Fraser, would blast 1970s jams from the radio while she cut his hair. The night before each appointment, she’d call and leave him a reminder message and drop hints to what songs they’d listen to, Rimmel said.

“They just really got to know you,” he said.

And for 25 years, up until their last day this past Wednesday, Fraser and Diane Coley of Diane’s Casual Cuts in Norwich, did just that not only for Rimmel but for the scores of regulars who walked through the side door at 309 Main St. The salon, which neighbors the famed Dan & Whit’s general store and sits kitty-corner across from the Norwich Green, has closed because owner Coley, after 44 years in the hairdressing business, is retiring and moving to Florida.

Coley and Fraser, the only other hairdresser at Diane’s, decided to make their last day a celebration for both their customers and themselves. Throughout the day, old regulars stopped in to deliver cakes, sweets and hugs and to revel in the lasting memories made in the shop — and maybe one last haircut.

At one point in the early afternoon, a gaggle of customers gathered around Coley as she flipped through a scrapbook that contained pictures of her and Fraser’s haircutting journeys throughout the years. She stopped at a photo of Hilde Wood, founder and original owner of Hilde’s Salon Vienna in Hanover, where Coley worked from 1978 until she bought the space that became Diane’s, also from Wood, in 1997.

Coley called Wood the “matriarch” of a collection of Upper Valley hairdressers who’ve proliferated throughout the region since Wood’s retirement in the late-1990s (Wood, as Coley is doing now, retired to Florida). Coley noted that another Norwich hair salon, Andrea’s Hair Studio, is owned by a different Wood acolyte.

“(Hilde) had three golden rules,” Coley said. “You don’t talk religion, you don’t talk politics and you don’t talk gossip.”

Coley said Wood taught her to respect customers by always doing her best for them and by talking and listening when needed.

“(Some customers) like to talk, which is fine, so they do the talking and I sit back and listen,” Coley said. “You respect their mannerisms, because some people need to get it out; they might not have anybody at home to talk to.”

Fraser said she and Coley were both just another part of Wood’s “saga.”

Mary Ayre, 78, sat on a wooden bench opposite the front desk and soaked in all the conversations and laughter. Ayre had been a Diane’s regular since the mid-2000s, and though she didn’t need a haircut Wednesday, she stopped in to hang out.

Ayre, who lives in Sharon, began going to Diane’s because she could stop there on her way home from work at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. She kept coming back because she got along with Fraser and Coley, calling the atmosphere inside Diane’s always “bubbly” despite how busy it might get on any given day.

Now retired, Ayre continued making the trip to Norwich just for Diane’s.

Fraser “is too young to retire,” according to Coley, but she too is leaving hair care, electing instead to move next door and work for Dan & Whit’s. Fraser is related by marriage to the family that owns the store. Fraser, through tears, said Coley had taught her everything she knew about hairdressing and that she’d never work for anyone else cutting hair.

“We’re a pair,” Fraser said.

But with both Coley and Fraser out of the business, where will their regulars — “too many to count,” according to Coley and many of whom have had the same hairdresser for more than 20 years — go now? The two have tried to help them find new barbers by searching the area for stylists who can replicate their dos.

One predicament neither Coley nor Fraser had thought about popped up Wednesday as the salon’s final hours drew near: Since Coley and Fraser cut each other’s hair, both of them would also need to find a new stylist.

A haircut is temporary, but the memories made and friendships forged over the past 25 years can’t be replaced.

Paul Doscher, another of Fraser’s clients who’s been coming to Diane’s every four weeks since it opened, joked that he was going to put a sign up outside the building for the new owners, who plan to remodel and open a new barbershop, that read: “You have a lot to live up to.”

Doscher said Fraser has known exactly how to cut his hair for the past 25 years and that he’d never willingly change to a new hairdresser. He sat at Fraser’s booth while she swept up, donned his barber bib, and started to sing.

Fraser, adorned in a blue-and-purple sequined shirt, guessed at the song Doscher was crooning: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. Doscher then jumped into a story about seeing the British singer for the first time in concert while Fraser snipped at his locks.

The two fell into conversation like two old friends, which they of course were. Coley was already busy chopping the hair of another customer, an older woman, who sat relaxed next to the bouquets of flowers and “Happy Retirement!” cards stacking up on Coley’s booth while she worked.

Other regulars ambled behind them, chatting and eating.

“I thought the party was going to be after work,” the older woman told Coley at the end of her session.

“Nuh-uh,” Coley responded. “It’s customer appreciation day.”

Ray Couture can be reached at 1994rbc@gmail.com.

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