Etched into my mind.
Yesterday we both decided to get our hair cut. I have been going for some years now to the same barber. It is a franchised business by the name of Rojo-Pelli. I have seen them in other suburbs as well. They are computerized that gives you a ticket with an estimated waiting time. They are always very busy with customers that are mainly elderly men with some that don’t have any or very little hair. You wonder why they go there? I suppose clinging onto what has been. I reckon men find getting older more of a hard journey than women. My answer for that dilemma is for men to become involved into domesticity together with some light indoor bowling.
Anyway, even men without hair on top, can at least get their eye brows trimmed and ear and nose bristles cutback. Odd that men get hairs out of their nostrils and ears. Mind you, some women get hair too in strange places. I had an aunt who had prickly hairs on her chin and that really put me off as a small boy having to kiss her. She was always very generous and that made putting up with kissing her bearable. Hirsutism was popular at the time Sophia Loren reached her fame. I still like well endowed women’s armpits. I think it was the UK or US who started all that fake-feminism with fanatic showering and dehairing. I am just mentioning it because one of the medications I am taking; Spiractin 25, helps with female hirsutism.
A few times Helvi too braved to get her haircut by this mainly male barber. Each time she was very happy with the result. I had already noticed a few women getting their haircut at the same place. They are a no nonsense business and one gets a discount for being loyal. Yet, they are well trained cutters. One cutter is a dark men who told me he is from the Philippines. He is a joy to behold when watching him cut. At first he looks at the head to be shorn from some distance and studies the cranial part to be tackled. He cups his chin in contemplation. Once he gets underway, there is no stopping. He twists and dances about as a Nureyev at The Bolshoy, but all the time those scissors keeps clattering even when away from hair and in midair. He obviously takes pride in doing his job. All- in- all, this business is flourishing with now 4 cutters doing their job. We both got our tickets from the computer and were told to wait 61 minutes. This then gives time to do something else. We had our grandson coming so we went to the shop to buy some crusty bread-rolls and Cevapis which are a Croatian/Serbian skinless sausage. Our grandson loves those which is not surprising as his dad is Croatian.We had a coffee and watched the holiday crowds go by. Lots of mothers with children. School holidays used to be the bane in my mother’s life. Six kids in an upstairs apartment for bloody six weeks! I suppose school holidays get mixed blessing from Mums. Some mothers looked fed-up. Whining kids when walking past the lolly-shop! No doubt some would get a smack when getting home.
Most mums did, and look at us now.
We had our haircuts and both looked wonderful.
Tags: Bolshoy, Cevapi, Croatia, Hirsutism, Nureyev, Serbia, Sophia Loren, UK, US
Oosterman Treats Blog 
January 8, 2019 at 3:05 am |
The last time I had my hair cut in a salon, the woman who was flitting around me with her scissors seemed just a little too enthusiastic. I don’t know what she thought I wanted the result to be, but I didn’t get it. When I walked out, I looked like Sinead O’Connor. I swore I never was going to go through that again, and I haven’t. I’ve cut my hair myself since around 1990. Just think of the money I’ve saved! (And I do an all right job of it, too.)
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January 8, 2019 at 5:11 am |
Yes, my dad always cut our hair. Helvi sometimes did my hair but she moved my head around so wildly I feared getting injured.
I usually leave it too long. Helvi used to get her hair done by ‘Hair Sculpting’ or ‘Hair /Magic/Beauticians/ magic/wonders. They then try to talk one in nail fascinations/washing/tinting/ and all sorts of things. Helvi also found it difficult to keep on rattling on about so much nothingness. She is now hooked on the male barber.
I admire you doing it yourself. How do you cut the back? I suppose standing in front of two mirrors backwards.
I wondered when I watched a girls sweeping up all that hair if there is a market for human hair.? Does the barber sell it?
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January 8, 2019 at 5:12 am |
It’s funny, you know…; the image of adults one has as a child, compared to the actual reality known by the adults of the time around you. Mrs. Hancock used to cut our hair when we were children…the four of us ; from the oldest brother (about 10 yrs) , down incl’ to my sister, then myself (the youngest about five yrs). We would be marched down across the railway-line by the eldest (“hup-two three four”), each clutching a bob (one shilling) in our sweaty little hands to get that one generic haircut for which Mrs. Hancock was infamous..: “The Baseoh”…about once every couple of months, it seemed, most of the kids in the district would sport a Mrs. Hancock “special”…and we’d be lined up on the railway station going to school, looking like a lot of miniature “Moes” (as in The Three Stooges!) waiting for the train….girls incl’, you know!..I wonder that some social science person didn’t do a study on ; “Demographic by haircut” kind of thing for those days?..there must have been a “Mrs. Hancock” in every suburb…truth be known, I believe most barbers..like most architects, have one basic style..and everything else is a derivative there-off.
The image I had of Mrs. Hancock as a child was of this frumpy old lady, dressed in ‘lop-sided’ cardigan and dress, living in this dreary old fibro house, with creepy shadows and dull lighting…she would sit us in an old stuffed, armless chair next to one of those “side tables” of dark timber and curved legs and armed with scissors, a smelly fag and the endless glass of water, she would attack our tangled locks with all the tactics of “Tojo in a Zero” coming out of the sun!….the fag-end would send an endless swirl of smoke past her wincing eye…she’d take a gulp of water, vice-clasp our head unceremoniously with her left hand and her right hand would start with the then continuous…”snipsnipsnipsnip…snipping” as she dove into the job, to come out the other side in an undisturbed arc, the arm ascending upward to hover above our heads somewhere “sit still child!”..mechanically, continuously, snipsnipsnipsnip snipping !….one sat in a horror of anticipation for the next “strafing” (and you know, I can’t stand being “dive-bombed” by mozzies to this day…I don’t mind so much the bite…it’s the hovering, whirring, buzzing that drives me crazy!). Her house was the last one on that side of the road..behind the train station…I think it was called “Cygnet Terrace” before it was pushed through and became “The Cove Road”…a cold wind would cut down through the barren gullies there in winter.
But it wasn’t till years later, when I first started going to the pub as an older youth, that I realized that the “glass of water” always at her beck, was gin and tonic…..Yes, poor old Mrs. Hancock was a gin-soak….and , going by her familiarity with her fellows in the front bar of The Seacliff Hotel ; an old hand at the game. I suppose that is why her front parlour where she “scalped “ us kids always had the curtains drawn…but , you know…my mother would have heard of that..but then again, many in that “fringe district” where we lived were escapees from reality….my old man bought there because it was cheap land…not now though!….It was at the end of the railway line…hang on, that’s not quite true…there was one more stop..”Hallett Cove”…but that place only got two or three trains a day then and it was the refuge of bankrupts, hermits and criminals….I got to meet quite a few in later years, so can confirm the statement!
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January 8, 2019 at 9:39 am |
Hallett Cove isn’t all that far from Adelaide. You must have gone back in time when writing it was ‘the end of the line.’
My parents settled in Revesby in 1956 which was two stations from a dead end rail line. Then is was on the edge of Sydney, more or less. Now it is almost deemed part of Sydney. I recently looked at where we used to live. It was a modest 3bedroom fibro cottage. It first wasn’t connected to sewerage so we had the ‘dunny man’ where human waste up and down our part of town was carried in steel containers and heaved into to large trucks.
The dunny man is now lost to folklore and history, but then they were a type on their own. It was deemed a desirable job. It had all sorts of lurks and perks, not least dalliances with lonely but fascinating divorcees. At Christmas time it was part of the culture then prevalent, to leave a slab of beer. We in our family with six children had two dunnee pans each week, which meant two slabs of beer.
http://www.warrenfahey.com.au/the-dunny-a-history/
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January 8, 2019 at 8:17 pm |
My barber and I share a similar perspective on Trump, So we have some fun, interesting conversations. Plus I get a good haircut. Last time I was there, he broke out toilet paper that had Trump’s image on each piece.
Whenever I drive through my old hometown in California, I am amazed that the same barbershop still exists there. There was always a debate when we were kids. The barber was union and my dad was union. He could be fined if he went to a nonunion shop. But the nonunion shop charged $.50 less and $.50 was a big deal, so we often took the risk. He never was fined. –Curt
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January 10, 2019 at 10:22 pm |
Yes, some barbers are very good at politics and conversation. However, I remember a joke. A man went to the barber. The barber asked him; ‘how would you like your hair cut? Answer; ‘In total silence!’ Interesting about the Union and non Union. One learns something all the time.
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January 12, 2019 at 4:36 pm
Barbers are a bit like bartenders, Gerard, always up for a bit of conversation. The union thing used to apply to other businesses as well. But that was the 50s when labor unions were more powerful. Not so much any more. –Curt
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January 12, 2019 at 9:57 pm
It was the same in Australia in fifties and sixties especially the building game. You would not get a job without a union ticket. This is now a different game but conditions and pay have declined. I am a bit of a union man still.
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January 9, 2019 at 6:57 am |
YAY for new haircuts! 🙂 Barbers charge less than salons here and the barbers are better hair-cutters. 🙂
I grew my hair out for one year and had it cut recently. The haircutter-person measured 16 inches were cut off. I had my hair go to a place that makes wigs for children who have hair loss from cancer or other conditions and diseases.
I cut my hubby’s hair once a month…he seems to like the job I do. Oh, and he pays me well! 😉
The drawing is fabulous! Did you draw it?!
I bet you had fun with your grandson around!
HUGS!!! 🙂
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January 10, 2019 at 10:28 pm |
Thank you ,Carolyn. Yes it is one of my etchings in blue.
Our grandson developed a sore throat while here with us. He also had an infected ankle due to a motor bike accident when he was trekking in Indonesia. Anyway, all came good with getting anti-biotics through a visit to the doctor.
Glad your hair went to a good cause helping kids with cancer. H lost all her hair due to chemo, but never wore a wig and used a very creative way with many scarfs. A year later and all her hair is back.
Hugs.
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January 11, 2019 at 6:37 am
I’m so glad Helvi’s hair is back!
Sorry to hear your grandson was ill…glad he is better now.
(((HUGS)))
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January 10, 2019 at 4:27 am |
Gerard…I am thinking of putting that post I addressed to you up on The AIMN as a piece that explains my emotions and feelings for these times…I could rename it, but I thought of just re-titleing is ..: “A letter to a friend” and leaving your name as a sub-title…or I could just call it : “Letter to …” and cut your name off altogether…it’s just that I would like to keep it as it was posted…What do you think?
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January 10, 2019 at 7:14 am |
Hello Jo,
No problem you putting up on AIM a piece that you have written, Jo. Helvi and I both think you should leave my name out of it. We each have our own blogs that we respond or write on and think they should be kept separate.
I think it is a good post and will get more exposure on AIM than on mine.
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January 10, 2019 at 7:36 am |
Righto. Gerard…I wil post it as :”Letter to a friend”…I know I may be taking liberties with the presumption of “friend” bit…but I do feel a certain comeraderie to a fellow traveller like yourself…so forgive me the liberty…and it does have that “letter” feel about it…ta.
It’s not the exposure that I want, it is intrying to shine a little light..however dim..on what I feel we take for granted until it slips from our grasp…
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January 10, 2019 at 10:30 pm |
No worries. Friendships are never wrong.
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January 10, 2019 at 12:34 pm |
Chin hairs be damned! They are the bane of my existence. Pit hairs are nearly invisible and I’ve given up fussing over them. Leg hairs, I can’t stand bristle on the insides of my legs so I’m still chained to getting rid of ’em. TMI
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January 10, 2019 at 10:40 pm |
Bearded ladies have always fascinated me. There was a Euro-vision winner a few years ago. He or she was deemed to be the best. She or he sang with a high pitched voice. Was she not Swiss? Anyway, it was accepted and today all sorts of differences are accepted. I have always been drawn to women endowed with hair no matter where.
The shaving of pubes is now endemic including with men, at least on porn sites. Strange how ideas of femininity and masculinity are being watered down or diluted.
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January 11, 2019 at 8:46 pm
Hmmm. I don’t peruse the porn sites, so I’ll take your word for that. But I do see fewer men with chest hair and even with very smooth looking arms/legs. And then there is the shaved head thing, which I suppose is a reaction to thinning hair, but I’m always amused by a big bushy beard below a totally bald head. It looks like the hair follicles slipped down! And then there’s the new craze for tattooed eyebrows and fuzzy caterpillar eyelashes on young women. They spend a fortune on these things and can look quite ridiculous.
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January 11, 2019 at 10:25 pm
Yes, the tattooing is getting a bit rich. Are we supposed to read and look at all those words and drawings? I prefer au natural, and to see a neck all blue and black because of tattooing really throws me. I suppose that is old age creeping in. Mind you, I have seen grandmothers now with tattoos.
Yesterday I saw a grandma pushing a pram and she had ‘I’ll do you’ written on her arm.!
As for perusing porn sides. I pushed wrong button once trying to find a recipe for sautéed chicken wings, and next I saw all those plucked genitalia. It was horrible. I had to lie down.
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January 10, 2019 at 12:37 pm |
BTW, I love your description of the Philippine friseur.
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January 10, 2019 at 10:42 pm |
Yes, he is fully dedicated to cutting hair. I enjoy watching him cut. I suppose all that dancing around is good too.
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