MEMORY TRIGGERS

The other day I decided to go and get a hair cut. Once I’m in the barber’s chair and he is snipping away, my mind drifts off to different things and it was no different from other times.

NO LONGER A BARBERSHOP

I recalled my first haircut, an event that every man should remember because he does this with his Dad, and it is the first thing they really do together. Dad and I walked down Hull Street together, made a left on Rockaway Avenue, passed Somers Street and crossed the street to the barber shop.

We entered the place and I distinctly remember the barbershop window, it had wooden blinds and gold stencil lettering on the window. It must have been a Saturday morning because Dad was off from work. I sat in the chair, and the barber put a wooden bench across the arms and began to cut my golden locks. Yes, I was a natural blond, with wild hair.

It was time for the electric razor, and as it buzzed, the barber must have sensed I was nervous, and told me the noise was from an airplane, and proceeded to bring out this little grey plastic toy airplane which he gave me and said to make noise along with it. Every time I go to the barbershop I think of that day, with Dad in the chair next to me.

NO LONGER THE DENTIST

Across from the barber’s was the dentist, who had his office upstairs. There were no favorites in my house, my parents liked the girls all the same, and the baby at the time was my sister Fran, ‘La Senorita’ who we later renamed ‘Nippy’. Dad brought home some soda one night and made Nippy the boss of the soda. That meant that I had to go through Nippy to get the soda, who was about 3 years old. Well she was so bossy it cost her a trip to the dentists second floor office on the corner of Somers St. and Rockaway Avenue, and we could hear the screaming all the way over to Hull Street as she sat in his office getting an extraction!

That evening there was enough water on the table to float the aircraft carriers Yorktown, and maybe the Lexington too. Mom looked at Dad cross-eyed for having had her baby need dental work at such a tender age. “For now on, I’M the boss of the soda!” said Mom, and Dad just looked down in his soup.