Felix

I got my hair cut yesterday. Pretty exciting, right? Actually, I always look forward to getting my hair cut - not because I love it so much, but because it always means a quick visit with an old friend - Felix, my barber of more than 30 years.

When my family moved to Mineola from Flushing in 1973 my mother searched long and hard for a barber who I liked. As I recall, getting my hair cut was not my favorite pastime. I was the quintessential little pill. I never wanted to go anywhere, except maybe Toys R Us.

Exactly why my mother chose Rudy’s Barber Shop in Williston Park is lost in the mists of time. It’s possible she received a recommendation from one of my friends’ mothers. In any case, off she went in the hopes of securing someone who appealed to my delicate sensibilities. This was probably about 1977 or ’78.

I’m hazy on the details, but I remember taking an instant liking to Felix, a middle-aged man with an Italian accent so heavy I could understand perhaps every third or fourth word he said. I liked him immediately. I can’t explain it, but sometimes a person puts you so at ease in so short a time that you make an instant connection. Granted, I was seven or eight but I was a great judge of character even then!

Felix was very engaging with my Mom as well, and she was relieved to finally find someone who I looked forward to visiting. Much of that time is completely lost to me. All I have are impressions, really – just a warm feeling that this man excelled not only at his trade, but at the art of engaging his young “subject,” so as to take my mind off what he was doing.

About three years later, Felix decided to open his own shop, as did another barber from Rudy’s. Each barber had his own clientele, and they were followed to their new establishments by their respective “fans.” I had several friends who followed the other barber to his new location, and he is still their barber. I, of course, followed Felix to his, which was much closer to my house.

Very shortly after Felix moved, I was old enough to travel to his shop on my own, and most times I rode my bike there. Losing Mom went a long way toward establishing a rapport with Felix that resembled what we have now.

He became my Italian rabbi, someone I could pour my heart out to about whatever juvenile problem I was experiencing, and he dispensed Old World wisdom, of which he had buckets to spare. As the years wore on, I was able to understand nearly everything he said (with some occasional difficulty!)

I suppose my relationship to Felix resembled one people might traditionally have with a trusted bartender. He was someone I never ever saw outside his shop. It’s as though he didn’t exist in the outside world, but our meetings were as a regular as clockwork. He handed out pearls of wisdom about women, family, friends, school, work and life. He always made sense to me.

You could never be sure what we might talk about, or where his standing question, “What’s new?” would lead. As someone who loves conversation, it became something to look forward to, and eventually, to treasure.

Felix knew my life well. He knew my best friend. He knew my girlfriend. When my best friend moved to Florida, he helped me deal with it in his own small way. When my girlfriend dumped me, he made his own unique contribution to picking up my shattered remains. Nothing he said was silly or trite, and he never acted as though he knew more than anyone else.

Before you start thinking this is an obituary, rest assured it is not. Felix is alive and well, and still cutting my hair. He cut my hair for my wedding, and when I asked him for a traditional barber shave, he waved me off and told me, “That’s ‘a silly. You no want that.” I guess I didn’t. Around that time, he had a heart scare, but he bounced back, just in time for that wedding cut.

I was devastated when, one day about five years ago, I walked into his shop and he wasn’t there. I was told that he sold the shop and retired, and given no more information than that. I was bereft and allowed the new proprietor to cut my hair. I felt like I was cheating on my wife! On another level, it felt like Cal Ripken’s streak was coming to an end!

I walked out of there not knowing what to do, or even how to contact Felix. I didn’t even know his last name! It turns out that the wife of one of Felix’s employees worked at the same university as I, so I shot her an e-mail asking for his address. After all these years, I needed to give him a proper good bye and tell him what he meant to me.

I sent him a card, congratulating him on his retirement, and tried to sum up what he meant to me. Soon after, I got a call from Felix and having never spoken to him on the phone, I could barely understand him! He was grateful for my words, but more importantly, he was still working!

Even though he sold his business, he couldn’t bear to retire. He was now working at a shop in Great Neck. Although I was now living in Huntington, I was still working in Queens, so the shop was convenient for me. I also still worked part-time in Albertson, so I would get my hair cuts between working the two jobs. That continues to this day.

I have talked to Felix about everything under the sun, from the mundane to the significant, from the sublime to the ridiculous. He’s in his mid-sixties now, and if his health remains good, maybe I’ll have another five years with him. Retirement does not seem to be on his radar.

Last night, we were talking about my friend in Florida, whom he knew well. I told him we stay in touch via e-mail and I was extolling the virtues of technology as it related to staying in touch. I told him how I used to love to write letters but so few others did. It led him to a story about how he would write 5-6 letters a day when he was in the army. He told me that he was 20 years old before he spoke on the telephone for the first time, because his village in Italy only had one.

My friends laugh at my connection and loyalty to him, and that’s fine. But when you stop and think about it, this is someone who has known me almost my entire life, and made a significant, if unsung contribution to it, one that cannot be underestimated or diminished. He means as much to me as anyone who has contributed something positive to my life, past or present. When the time comes, I don’t know what I’ll do without him.