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In an effort to spend a little less time with YouTube and other screen-intensive activities, I've taken to re-reading some of the old books here in the library. Already re-read an Einstein biography, and 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. And just this week started to re-read a very good biography on Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts, by David Michaelis. In this biography we learn that Charles Schulz's dad was a well-respected barber, and some of his favorite childhood memories were going into the shop to watch his dad work. He cut hair the old-fashion way, a given since this was the 1920's, using a single blade freshly stropped between each shave.
This stirred a barbershop memory of my own. In the summer of 1980 I was living near Allende, Coahuila, and had driven from there to Mexico City with a friend who wanted to see his newborn son. His wife went down there to have the baby so that her parents could help her during the required 40-day period of complete post-childbirth bed rest, along with a few things they had to do to satisfy culture and superstition. So we drove down there, and I stayed with them about a week in La Colonia Portales. (neighborhoods in many large Mexican cities are named colonias)
My friend's father-in-law was a barber, and the family lived above his ground-floor shop. A few things stand out in memory about my stay in that place: 1) You had to bathe and do as much as possible before 6:30 a.m., because after that the water pressure was so low that only the faucets on the first floor worked - thereafter any water used for cleaning, cooking, toilet flushing, etc., had to be hauled up in buckets; 2) I found and got to reading a small text called La Lengua y Los Hablantes, and became so engrossed they just gave it to me...a book that I still have here in the library; and 3) I had to sleep in the barber shop.
Yes, in Amarillo during the summers of 1978 and 1979 I lived in a plumbing shop, and in 1980 I slept for a time in a barber shop.
Each night the proprietor would take me downstairs onto the sidewalk and unlock the rolling door, raising it to let me in. After entering he would move the heavy barber chairs around to make room on the floor for my prostrate form. Once everything was set up to his satisfaction he'd go outside, roll down the door and - this being Mexico City - lock it, rendering me a prisoner inside until breakfast the next morning. I was furnished with a pad to lie on and blanket for a cover (even in summer it gets cold at night there) with a pillow, and fortunately I sleep fine on a hard surface so all was good. Even had a restroom that was there for the customers.
Being raised in the U.S., I was intrigued with this man and the way he conducted business. Much like Charles Schulz's dad he dressed the part, in a starched white shirt with snappy pants and dress shoes...very professional. And, also like the elder Shulz, he gave all haircuts using a single-bladed razor, using the strop to sharpen the blade between each customer. Seeing my interest, he asked if I wanted a haircut. Sure, why not I said. So he went to work, first working the razor over the leather until it was extremely sharp, then using nothing more than that blade and a comb gave me probably the best haircut I've ever had.
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