Brian Egeston of Stone Mountain grew up with a truck driver dad who was happy with what he had.

Egeston grew into a man who was always looking for something better. An entrepreneur, a dreamer.

Family photo (ENLARGE)

Brian Egeston holds his younger brother Johnathan steady for his first hair cut in Little Rock, Ark. in the 1980s. The barber's name was Sparky.

RENEE' HANNANS HENRY/AJC (ENLARGE)

Brian Egeston with his 4month old son Zachary Egeston in Your Head Up Barbershop.

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Someone crazy enough, in a bad economy and with a newborn son, to start a free local magazine about barbershops. Someone driven enough to load 20,000 copies of Barbershop Digest each month into a Chevy truck his dad gave him and deliver them to 600 shops all over metro Atlanta.

He and his pages celebrate the barbershop as a sanctuary from the societal message that African-American men aren't valued. For Egeston, this is where life became vivid and full of possibility.

It was the rare common ground Egeston shared with his dad.

"My dad never taught me how to play catch. Never taught me how to shoot a basketball or throw a football. But he always took me to the barbershop when I needed a haircut," Egeston said.

"It's really the only constant I remember about our relationship. That's probably when and why I fell in love with barbershops."

Unlike his dad's steady work for a paycheck, the men in the barbershop were hustlers. They always sought a way to make life better, even if it meant selling quickly thawing chicken parts to the guys in the barber chairs.

Egeston listened to their stories, laughed at their jokes, felt their pain of a job or family lost.

Starting in January, he put all that and more in his magazine. Politics, gossip, advice — everything you hear in a shop is there in black and white.

Would someone really kill Barack Obama? How low will baggy pants go? Need a "side hustle" to make ends meet?

Between the lines is Egeston's story, about fathers and sons, what he remembers about his dad and what he wants for his own son.

At 38, he had taken risks before. A Tennessee State grad, he had left mechanical engineering to chase his much lower-paying passion — writing. He was so broke he even started clipping his own hair, and permanently damaged his hairline.

He self-published six books, worked for Atlanta Goodlife magazine and currently reports for The Champion, a DeKalb County community newspaper.

In 2005, he hatched the idea for a magazine. "I went to my barbershop and was listening to some barbers talk trash about jumping rope. They issued a challenge to anyone who could jump rope for three minutes without stopping. Someone bet me $100 I couldn't do it," he recalled.

"Three minutes later, I was a barbershop legend. I never got the money but instantly saw the camaraderie and the spirit of barbershops in a different light. I wanted to take the barbershop experience home."

Egeston persuaded his co-worker and neighbor Travis Hudgons to design the magazine. College friend Angus Wilson takes pictures when he's not working at UPS.

Just like a barber, Barbershop Digest's survival depends on word -of-mouth. Loyalty takes time.

"[Martin Luther] King hustled for nonviolence. [Barack] Obama is out there hustling for change," he told readers in a recent issue.

"And here we are at Barbershop Digest hustling for you, to give you a product that is motivation and inspiration for you to hustle. ... It's not about us, it really is about the kat cutting heads all day and the guy who's worked all day and just needs to relax in the barber's chair and get his batteries recharged with a fresh fade."

The ads haven't sold well, and by March, the third issue, Egeston asked his wife to dip into her retirement account. She never considered no.

"There are not a whole lot of arenas where the men in my family could be heard and validated," said Latice Egeston, 37, a psychotherapist. The Egestons have handled an even bigger beginning at home. The same week as the debut issue in January, they adopted a newborn boy. A son who, like his father, had struggled to find his way in the world.

"Zachary means 'God has remembered.' We have longed to be parents, and the journey hasn't been easy for us," Latice Egeston said. "We had to accept that God wanted us to be parents through adoption.

"We needed Zachary and Zachary needed us."

This month, Brian toted Zachary, 5 months, into Your Head Up Barbershop in Snellville, to pursue a story for the May issue. He paused to cradle his boy and give him a bottle.

Egeston would pull a marathon to deliver the magazine by Saturday, the biggest day for barbershops.

The same day would be Zachary's "covenant ceremony," where the couple would pledge his care to God. They and their friends and family would line up and pass the boy, one to another, to symbolize their village of care.

The belief needed to keep a child safe, to take scissors to hair, to put words on a blank screen — all that energy comes from the same place, Egeston told readers.

"My hustle is laying in my lap as I write this message ... without a care in the world and without a clue that his daddy won't be sleeping the next few days. Not because he keeps me up with diaper changes and feedings. But because I share a common trait with the kats holding clippers and the dudes selling wares and the activists fighting for change. That trait is, we all found our reason to hustle."