Mr. Kim Blogs: John the Barber

Today is May 31. It is a special day for John the Barber. 

John has been cutting my hair for fifteen years.  He is the sole proprietor of a nearby barbershop, and is as anachronistic as the setting itself.   The shop is something out of….. not just another time, but a combination of times.  The old yellowed linoleum floors reflect the fluorescent lighting only in a confused way now, the shiny finish long gone and pocked with cracks.  There is space for three chairs, but only one now remains.  Filling the empty space is a large HO scale model train deck that John has been working on for years.  Four trains, a dozen buildings, mountains, water, bridges, all in vivid detail.  John spends his time refining the layout in the long gaps that stretch between customers some days.  If you ask nicely and there’s no one waiting, he’ll set everything to moving for you and tell you more than you want to know about why he chose this car or that crossing, and how he just can’t seem to get the track angle quite right to be able to cleanly back up that engine without it derailing. 

Where the barbershops of my youth would have had stuffed deer heads or plastic  bass or NASCAR paraphernalia on the walls (usually accompanied by an oversized wall calendar featuring either a sketch of the barber’s church or, more commonly, a vivid photo of a somewhat clothed buxom beauty queen) John’s shop instead had a large scale model train that he occasionally fired up to circle the shop noisily, just above head level, high enough to slip past the old television mounted in the corner.  For years there has been a hand written price sheet for offered services, visible only once you are sitting in the chair, right there over the old cash register that always displayed $00.  As prices changed, the sign at first was modified with stickers to increase the posted cost rather than rewrite it.  Eventually, John just started using magic marker to cross out the old prices and write the new ones above it.  $11 became $13 became $15 over the years I have been going to John, always chasing the higher rent and electrical.  Although propriety says one doesn’t need to tip a hair cutter for services if it’s the owner of the establishment, I always did.  From all indications, John needed it more than I did.  He’d take the twenty, look at me for an extra half second and bob his head, and then pull out the small wad in his pocket and add this bill to what was probably his week’s take. 

I remember when I was a very young child, and my mom would take my brother and me up to see Mr. Locke, the barber in the then-neighborhood.  Haircuts with Mr. Locke were 25 cents for kids, 50 cents on Saturdays.  I always sat in The Chair, while brother had to sit on “the Bench”, a contraption that fit across the arms of the barber chair to raise him to Mr. Locke’s level.  Brother always whined about it, that he thought he was big enough to sit in The Chair.  I don’t recall if he ever graduated in that particular shop.  Back then I would get a haircut once every two weeks or so.  Always short short short.  Boys in the neighborhood would ask for fancy cut styles with names like The Flat Top, The Pineapple, and The Duck.  None of that nonsense for my dad’s sons, though.  Mr. Locke would always begin with the question, “Do you want a Mohawk today?” and end the session with “Okay, do you think that’s good enough for your girlfriend?”  At age 5 or 6, this was always funny.  The ritual always ended with him handing me a piece of Bazooka bubble gum.  The rare times when he handed me two were special days indeed.  As I got “older” (maybe 7, no more than 8) mom would sometimes put the quarter in my hand and let me walk up to the shop, perhaps eight blocks away through the neighborhood.  When we moved away from there to a bigger house nearer my grandparents, Mr. Locke was lost with all the friends I had made and all the childhood explores and adventures of those days.  I was ten, after all, and things were moving forward from dirt clod battles and damming up streams to things like basketball and little league.

I can recall most every barbershop that has cut my hair since those days – places with names like Tony’s, Charlie’s, Bubba’s……..  I lay in bed last night trying to recall the places that I frequented that were hair salons or what have you and couldn’t recall a single one in all the years in Alexandria, Arlington, Charlottesville, Batesville, or Salem.  Surely I got haircuts over that dozen year stretch.  But who did the cutting and where they did it have faded from memory.  Such places are soulless.  Barbershops, THEY are landmarks and social hubs.

John’s shop has soul.  It’s a reflection of a man who spends far too much time trying to make a living in a dying industry.  He practically lives at the shop.  Many times I have walked in to find him practicing his bagpipes or standing before a music stand beating on a tom tom, practicing for an upcoming parade or concert that was to include his Scottish Highlander band.  There was once a sketch of John in his kilt and pipes in a cheap frame on the counter behind the chair, though that disappeared years ago.  Men drop in to John’s shop just to sit and chat.  I was likely to be part of a conversation about a guy whom several men knew to be part of “the mafia” or what happened at the poker game in back of the hardware store last weekend, or which local character had been arrested for drunken behavior, or whose cancer had come back.  In this way, John’s barbershop is the real thing.

John is my elder, as would be expected.  There are no young barbers in the traditional sense.  He appears to be in his late 60’s although he has variously claimed to be eight years and twelve years older than my 54.  John has never been particularly consistent in his presentation of himself.  Barbers have to have the gift of gab, and perhaps the tale sometimes overcomes the reality.  I allow John the dignity and privilege of spinning his tales as he wants to that particular day.  So I am not sure if John really was a Green Beret in Viet Nam, or perhaps a cook or a barber even back then.  His reactions to current events suggest political leaning that range from Libertarian to Liberal, depending on the day and the mood.  But his disgust for politicians was universal.  He railed against the Democratic city council and the tea party congressmen with equal venom.  He’d always pause from cutting my hair and step in front of me so I could see the seriousness of his position in his furrowed brow, which was just fine with me when he had the straight razor in his grip. 

The only time I truly saw John angry was for a reason beyond any rational explanation.  His shop is adjoined to a local tavern, and one afternoon a thirty-something fellow wandered in and gushed over the train set up.  John was pleasant enough, it didn’t appear that he had seen this one before.  What was clear in seconds was that this fellow had only recently departed the tavern, though his arrival there was apparently hours earlier.  The fellow stood there and rambled on and on about a train he saw once and his friends in the western part of the state and how much John’s train set up was worth, and John’s responses got shorter and shorter.  Finally, the fellow stepped into a conversational hole no one would know was there – he made some vague reference to the Hatfields and the McCoys, comparing some trivial local confrontation to that interfamily gang war.  No sooner had the words left the fellow’s mouth than John erupted.  “You’d better shut the &#$* up!  You don’t know who the @#$& you’re talkin’ to!  My great grandfather was a McCoy!  You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, now get out of here.  NOW!”  The entryway was vacated, and I sat there in the chair wondering what had happened, and whether I was going to lose an ear to the straight razor that day.

Clientele followed John’s personal life through all its ups and downs.   As the economy turned south several years ago he lost his house.  I imagine it was mortgaged and remortgaged as he tried to keep afloat on a barber’s income.  He talked with despair about his grown daughter’s choices and his absolute need to help her financially, and with pride about his son and his high tech job.  Both may have been true, in whole or in part.  I heard about his church life, and his health.  I saw pictures lovingly and pridefully displayed of new grandkids, and the wonder gleam in his eye, along with a bit of moisture, when you asked about them.

But today, May 31, is a special day for John the Barber.  My most recent visit was in early May, when I went in for my first summer cut, the one that as a child was the right cut for my dad’s sons:  “John, slap a #1 in the trimmer, start above the eyebrows and keep going back ‘til you hit elastic.”  He always chuckled at that.  On that day, after settling into the chair I noticed the circling train track was gone, the kids’ photos, the television.  I turned and look at John and said, “Please tell me you’re remodeling.”  He just shook his head and pointed to the price sheet, which had been replaced by a hand written note:  “On May 31, this barber shop will be closing for good.”  I groaned and turned back to him.  He forced a smile and said that he was taking his trade to an uptown barber shop on the street level of a senior living apartment building.  He told me he had been assured he could have a chair there for the rest of his life.  His grin widened.  I didn’t see any real glee behind it.  He asked me if I’d come see him there.  I harrumphed and allowed as I HAD to, that it had taken years to finally get him to the point he could cut my hair halfway decent and I had no intention of breaking in someone new.  He chuckled at that.  As I got up from the chair, he handed me his new business card, with the uptown shop’s address and his hours:  Tuesday through Saturday, 9 to 5.

I was awake early this morning, as in 3:30 AM early, and thought about the upcoming day for John.  Was he relieved to finally be free of the struggles of running a business?  Was he defeated by its demise?  Was he happy at all to just be a barber and not an owner?  Will he ever be able to enjoy retirement?  So as this day ends and I know he has locked the doors, I think about John and his life.  Whatever that life has been, he deserves to enjoy the path ahead.  Godspeed.

Mr. Kim blogs: My most memorable meal

Kim’s thoughts here are of warmth or reward for a journey completed. My memories are of a different sort. Mine are wrapped up in emotions, replete with all the complexities of remembered youth.

When I met Kim, I fell, completely and utterly, head over heels in love. It was lightning in a bottle, not dependent upon her skills at cooking or housekeeping or money management. I had no idea about any of these things. (and in at least one of the three areas, a good thing too. But I digress…..) I just knew the first time I saw her that she was The One. The fact that she has become the best home cook in 49 states turned out to be a lucky bonus. Her first major effort on my behalf is the most memorable meal of my life.

Not long after we met, Kim invited me over for a home cooked meal. Coming straight from work, I arrived at her walk-up apartment to find her busy in that impossibly small kitchen. Within minutes of my arrival, she served up, beginning with a glass of our favorite oh-so-piss-elegant favorite wine, Reunite Lambrusco. Oy, we were twenty, what did we know of wines. It was sweet to the point of being a sparkling syrup, but it was red so we deemed it classy. It was followed by the meal of my life.

And what a feast! First, there was this steak. Now, eggs is eggs and steak is steak, but I was unused to such luxury, only really having access to it on birthdays, and even then not usually in extravagant portions.

(Of course, there was the one time in my childhood, I believe it was for my 16th birthday, that my mom splurged and got filet mignons for all five of us. That was to be a feast! She seasoned them and rested them on a cookie sheet as she warmed up the cast iron skillet to fry them up. All steaks were fried in my parents’ house. Mom heated the pan and began prep on some side dish or other, probably her mashed potatoes – my mom to this day makes the world’s best mashed potatoes, one of only a few areas where Kim’s current prowess has yet to approach mom’s – and while her back was turned, in ambled Andrew. Andrew was our 85 pound Norwegian elkhound / collie mix. Stealth was not in his nature. He didn’t walk, he galloped. Yet somehow he snuck in behind mom, and eased up on his hind legs to reach the pan of filets. One by one, he gingerly lifted those steaks off the pan, not tipping it over or slurping or making any noise to alert my mother, not two feet away with her back turned. Down they went, all but two. A valued member of the family, Andrew had celebrated my birthday with a steak dinner. My mom chased him out of the house and into the yard with a knife, apparently intent on retrieving the steaks or carving an equivalent amount of meat from his haunches.)

So steaks were a rare delicacy when Kim surprised me with this beautiful rib eye. Cooked to perfection to a cool medium rare, with fresh garlic and butter as the only seasoning. And it was the largest steak I had ever had put before me. Truly delicious beyond words. Kim didn't want a steak that night. I recall that she just wasn’t hungry, having spent too long smelling it cooking. I asked if she happened to have A-1 (the pinnacle of accompaniments and an integral part of a steak, in my young mind) and Kim informed me that she had made something to take the place of steak sauce. And she poured over the top of the beef, allowing it to spill over the plate, something I had never tasted before. Brown and musty and tangy and firm were dozens of fresh mushrooms, lightly sautéed in butter and Worcestershire. I had never had a fresh mushroom except sliced in a tossed salad, where the heft of whatever full fat bottled dressing had muddled and mixed all the flavors. I certainly had had nothing in the way of a cooked mushroom that wasn’t preceded by the words “cream of.” The flavor was absolute heaven to me, reminiscent of smoke and anchovy and pepper. And combining this taste sensation with the steak, never forgetting that wonderful steak, was like opening a door to a whole new world for me. It wasn’t that I’d never eaten anyone else’s food beyond my family's. It was simply that I had never tasted anything this… special. And so perfectly prepared. And it was made just for me, a gift whose value can only be fathomed if you spent an hour listening to my recollections of childhood.

Accompanying this incredible bounty were sautéed Brussels sprouts. When I saw these, I knew I had to be polite. I had tasted sprouts before – my mom had served them several times, boiling the living daylights out of them until they gave up any semblance of dignity. But I was raised to never criticize or refuse food that was offered at dinner, a survivor of the clean plate club. Besides, Kim had given me steak and mushrooms; why would I offend my new love by telling her how much I detested sprouts? So I popped one in my mouth and attempted to crush it with my tongue against the roof of my mouth, as I had when forced to eat them at home. But I failed – these sprouts, each halved before being tossed in a skillet with a little butter until they charred up nicely, had texture. And flavor. They tasted like a sweet cabbage with undertones of the earth they grew in. They were really really amazing to a kid who had never had anything like it. I quickly fell into them like they were candy, pausing only long enough to express my amazement.

It wasn’t for years afterward, long after we were married, that Kim told me the rest of the story of that meal. You see, she didn’t have a steak that night. And she didn’t have meat or much of anything else to eat the rest of that week. She couldn’t. She had spent almost her entire week’s meager food budget on that one meal for me, knowing it would please the oblivious, self-absorbed boy-man that I was. When I learned this truth years later it caused me grief and embarrassment at the thought of what she had done and how it had escaped my notice at the time, even as I absorbed the degree of her devotion and sacrifice. I have never felt more loved in my life or more unworthy than I did when she told me.

Great meals should surpass expectations, should awaken the spirit with the purity of flavors both obvious and suggested. Good food should express the love the chef has for the ingredients and her earnest desire to please the diner. My girlfriend, my to-be-wife, gave me a magical experience that night. All the four star meals, all the gourmet ingredients, all the magnificent presentations that have been put before me in homes and restaurants since have only been reflections of that plateful of love.

Mr. Kim Blogs: Moving Day

I have devised a new workout plan that I recommend to everyone.

1. Have and raise a child. (This part takes a while, stick with it.)

2. Allow child to get an apartment at college so as to facilitate the accumulation of a lifetime's worth of crap and heavy furniture in four years.

3. Place all said belongings in storage after college and allow child to move home to find a job, save some money, and get established.

4. Wait 4 years for said child to "find herself."

5. (And here's where it gets good) At long last celebrate child's location of suitable grown up apartment. Do happy dance. Rent a truck, return to storage unit, load truck with 120 rooms of heavy furniture, boxes of books, boxes of what appear to be bricks, kitchen stuff, more lamps than can be found in a furniture store, what appear to be more bricks, and misc crap, all destined for a one bedroom basement apartment.

6. Arrive at apartment to find it flooded, less than a week after signing the lease. Call weekend emergency maintenance number, wait for plumber, and learn that the problem may be in a wall and will take up to a week to fully rectify. Reject idea of jumping out of window. It's a basement.

7. After laughing, then crying, then looking for the nearest liquor store, drive truck back to self-storage, unload everything including the bricks which appear to have been breeding in the truck because there are now four times as many. Find out that just because everything came out of the storage locker doesn't mean it all will to be easily fit back in again. Apparently bricks like sunlight.

8. Return truck, return home, and realize that part of what went into the storage locker was daughter's bed. Reluctantly agree to sleep on couch for a week.

9. Lie awake thinking that you have to do it all again next Saturday.

And voila! a 1200 calorie-burn workout. (Not including the have and raise a child part, that burns even more.)

Somebody pass the Ben-Gay.

Mr. Kim blogs: Baking another cake

I don’t bake often. The last cake I baked was in July 1984. I remember it well because I was young, stupid, and trying to surprise Queen Kim for her birthday. We were new parents and dirt poor and living in a walk up in the Fan District long before it became a toney place to live. And while I had mastered the art of the boiled egg and fried meat, I had never baked anything, unless you count helping my sister with that Easy Bake thingie when we were kids. But a cake was a must for some reason that escapes me now.

So I went to the store and bought what looked like a decent cake mix (scratch not being even on my radar). The Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines options were more expensive than the simple Martha White box cake, and surely there was not a difference, so home it went. In our oversized kitchen with exposed pipes and ancient appliances – surely a bedroom when the upper and lower apartments were a single residence – I stealthily put everything together. No hand mixer – that would tip the surprise to Kim who sat one room away – so I hand combined everything. I do not at this point recall what I did wrong, but the cake came out of the oven looking like two misshapen disks. I do not mean high in the middle, I mean high on one side of one and high on ALL sides on the other. I am quite certain I just went by the clock and never checked their doneness. But I forced them on top of each other and slopped some glop frosting on them from yet another mix, having either eschewed the premade frostings or not seen them or perhaps they weren’t yet available, who knows. But I slopped it all together. And I carried in to Kim.

The look of joyful true surprise on her face as she looked at me quickly gave way to undisguised amusement at this sliding quasimoto of a cake. I echoed her laughter to hide the embarrassment as I realized for the first time how silly it looked. Then we bit into it and found that the worst was yet to come. Suffice it to say that I learned a lot about THOROUGHLY mixing ingredients. And I never baked another cake. Until now.

I saw Paula D throw together a very simple apple pecan cake last week and decided that even I could manage it. She assured her audience that it was fool-proof, and I usually chuckle at such statements since these chefs have never seen me cook anything. But I decided to take it on.

Cutting to the chase, I put this together on a day off to surprise Kim. When she came home form work, the look of joyful true surprise on her face as she looked at me quickly gave way to undisguised amusement as I told her what was baking. The texture turned out very moist and smooth, and the flavor was a nice balance of apple and cinnamon, an obviously trite but winning combo. It held together better than I feared it would. Kim must have liked it, as she has asked me to make another for our new neighbors in place of her planned cookie-welcome.