His father didn’t just go to the barber in the park because of the price, it’s because of the socialization with people his age that he receives from the trips that mattered more, translated…
My father is close to ninety, and he’d started, needing help on his daily living routines from me, but, his head of reduced strands of hair, isn’t mine to worry over, because he can, still take care of it. There had been a period of time, he’d, gone to the $100N.T. salon by the wholesales mart, I’d only known, that he’d, followed the trends of the young people, but later, he’d, started going to the park, to get his trims, from a mobile barber, even as there was a barbershop with the shampooing that’s opened up close to his home, he’d, still, gone to the parks to get his hair done.
This aroused my curiosities, the elderly is frugal, and, he’d, selected this barber who’d set up shop in the parks, it must’ve been the prices that’s attracted him, but, he’d told me, that the haircuts he’d received, was also $100N.T.s, and so, I’d, analyzed for him, how it would fit him best, to choose, but, he’d not offered any other explanations, and still, kept at his choice.
illustration from the papers online…
Once, he’d wanted me to head over to the park on my way, to see if the barber was working, because he’d, missed him several times. I’d, gone and tried to find the barber he was talking about, I’d, walked around the park repeatedly, but, no sign of the barber he spoke of. Later, I saw an elderly man sitting on the park benches, chit chatting with someone, with a duffle bag, seemed, to have the items he used, to make a living with inside, I’d gone up to ask him, and, turned out, that this man WAS the barber in the park my father talked about.
Turns out, this was, the services, offered from elderly to elderly,, so, that elderly barber, must have, extraordinary skills then? But my dad told me, it wasn’t, necessarily so, there was awhile, when his hands shook, as he held the scissors, because he had cataracts, and couldn’t see clearly.
“Holy! And you still allowed him to give you a haircut?”, “So, I’d consoled him to get his cataracts removed, and, there’d been a long time when I’d not seen him, that was when I’d gone to the $100N.T. shop at the wholesales mart, and, later, his hands became steady again, and he’d, thanked me for the reminders too!” My dad was, speaking so self-righteously, but, would the specialty barbers, pale by comparison to the elderly man? “It’s different! The elderly may not be as agile, but, he’s very careful, if you hurried him, he’d tell you, that his business is guided by credibility, that he wouldn’t, just do it so carelessly, besides, it’d also cost $100N.T.s, if you pay the machines at the $100N.T. quick barbers, the machine only spits out a slip to you, but, as I’d, handed him his earnings, the elderly barber would thank me repeatedly!”
As the mystery was, no longer a mystery anymore, at first, I’d felt, a bit, disappointed, thinking that there may have been, a more interesting story. But, thinking close on it, the two elderly men, they were, both, keeping their eras’ values intact, and enjoying the exchanges in interacting with one another. The elder barker insisted on using the traditional ways of hair cutting, the quality weighed more than speed. In my father’s elderly years, he had the opportunity, to be take care of by a barber who knew him, although, it wasn’t in a shopfront, but, the park is open, and the simple interactions with the elderly barber was his rare-to-come-by interactions. Sometimes, the behaviors that seemed off to others, may have sentimental values attached, and so, these persistency, deserved our respects, this, was what I’d, learned from the two elders.
And so, this elderly man craved the one-on-one attention, the less mechanical way of getting his haircuts, that was why, he’d selected to go to the park, to get the elderly barber, and, through the trips to the parks to get his haircut, he’d, found someone he could, socialize with regularly.