The Barber Shop

Usually it is a Saturday morning when I’ll mention to Joni that I’ve got to get a haircut. With reference to male pattern baldness or the Friar Tuck look, my wife laughs at the thought of me getting a hair cut. Sometimes she’ll ask, “Which strand might that be?”

All my life, at least that which I can remember, it seems I have been going to John’s Barber Shop to get a hair cut. It never mattered where I lived. The barbershop was always named “John’s”.

As a boy living in Farmingdale when there were farms, it was great adventure to ride my bike from our cape cod house, venture across railroad tracks and on toward Main Street. I would peer into the distance, looking for the barber’s pole. I’d park my two-wheeler in front, and if my younger brother Dave came along, we’d go to the library afterwards and borrow a couple of books before heading home. Yes, where a restaurant is located today, there once was a library.

My first visits had me wondering what the strap hanging from the side of the barber’s chair was used for until I saw John sharpen his razor and clean a customer’s nape. I was fascinated with the whole process, asking how did a razor get sharper by sliding it along the leather throng. On another visit, I eagerly watched with a little boy’s curiosity, John’s skilled hands shave a man’s beard. Later, when it was my turn, I’d climb up into that chair and John would take out his long thin scissors and make me more or less presentable.

Our family moved to West Islip in 1955. There was a farm and a wooded area behind our house – great place for my brothers and I to run around and play. There were flowers grown in rows, rabbits in the woods and birds a plenty in the trees. We’d climb those trees and looked into birds’ nests to see the different colored eggs of robins or blue jays. In fact, there were so many blue jays someone named the local grocery store Blue Jay Market. Near the market was a candy store that sold baseball cards and ice cream sodas. And next door was John’s barbershop! I frequented this barbershop until I was drafted into the Army and all hair was lost. Style wasn’t a major concern when you had no hair. Or as Joni phrased it, “You should have taken that as an omen for the future.”

Unfortunately, I never saw anything resembling John’s barbershop neither during basic or advanced infantry training nor in Viet Nam. Getting a hair cut in VN was an amusing situation wherein whenever our top sergeant got up on the wrong side of his cot, he’d yell at all of us and then tell me to get a haircut. The only place we were allowed to get a hair cut was at papa sans because having GIs get haircuts by the locals was supposed to help the Vietnamese economy. While wondering which whiz kid thought that one up, one of my buddies told me to take some bandages with me.

Papa san had a pair of scissors and a propensity to take a long break from cutting your hair. He took out what looked like a round white ceramic bowl decorated with blue trim, lit it up and smoked some weed not generally found on the open market before returning and snipping away. If your ear got clipped, well war is hell. After that first visit, I’d get lost when Top screamed about haircuts, as I wasn’t “into” getting a Purple Heart for losing an ear.

Some years later, I went to a barbershop located on the west side of Higbie Lane and Udall’s Road in West Islip. The proprietor’s name just happens to be John. This is an experience like a glimpse at a moment in time. There is a certain aura of nostalgia in his emporium. You’ll see scores of Frank Sinatra pictures – many are autographed! You’ll hear songs sung by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis. If that isn’t enough, John has a collection of baseball memorabilia that includes pictures of Mickey Mantle, Phil Rizzuto and many New York Yankee stars, autographed baseballs and at least three baseball bats! It is more than a collection – it is life, as we once knew, lived and still exists.

I have always been a baseball fan. The Dodger’s were my favorite team. 1955 the Dodgers won the World Series but it seemed like the Yankees won all the rest. And in fact, they won the previous seven times the two teams met. For years I searched for a picture of the four Dodger sluggers – Roy Campanella, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. When I finally got one, I thought about John, made a copy, framed it, and gave it to him to squeeze onto his hallowed walls of fame. The diehard Yankee fan had a puzzled look on his face when I handed it to him. I explained that those great Yankee teams had to beat somebody to win all those World Series rings and these are the guys they beat! John could accept that and he hung it. Another time, I gave him a picture of the four New York centerfielders – number 4, the Duke of Brooklyn, Duke Snider, number 5, joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, number 24, the Say Hey Kid Willie Mays, and number 7, Mickey Mantle. I think John took that one home for his private collection.

Hank Hessing