The Italian Barber

Somewhere between packing, catching diseases, moving countries and being a family man, I forgot to get a haircut. In college, and during both of my years in Germany, I simply let my hair grow. The style around the turn of the millennium (if you can recall to those days of Y2K scares and mobile phones without screens) was for a man to have each of his hairs shorn tiny and combed forward so it came to a single point at the front. Everyone respectable had it, which bothered me for some reason, so I let my locks grow. I cut it short and pretty again every time I needed a desk job, but as a student or missionary I played Sampson (without the muscles). Some Women protested (though when long hair became fashionable again half a decade later they protested when I cut my hair), but sometimes my hippie hair invited comparisons to Jesus, John Lennon and Vigo Mortensen's version of Aragorn. Not bad company, if you ask me. Of course, I was also cast as a mental patient and a hobo...

I spent my last half-decade as a respectable DC urbanite with a matching haircut, and here in Germany, I need hair that assures anyone I meet (an immigration official, for example) that I'm ready to have a place in society. So, I went to a barber.

My in-laws recommended the Italian barber their Uncle Helmut frequents. Uncle Helmut lives across the street and used to worked at the town's brewery before he retired (sadly, the town's brewery also had to retire). His hair always looks distinguished, so I agreed. Plus, you don't need an appointment for this particular Italian barber.

Many barbers in Germany are Italian. In my German course during our Freiburg years, we once practiced our auditory understanding by listening to a funny story about a German housewife charmed by her Italian stylist. Many of them immigrated to Germany with their families in the 60s and run barber shops and restaurants today. Yes, as Texas is a good place to find Mexican food, southern Germany's not a bad place to find an Italian restaurant.

When I opened the door to the barber shop, I felt like I had walked into a retirement home. The men (even though the sign outside said they cut ladies hair, the posters, the magazines, the clientele and the barber were clearly masculine) ahead of me and behind me in line were long in the tooth, to say the least. Their short hair suggested they visit the barber shop every week (where my roadkill toupee look suggested other priorities), but, at least while I was there, it lacked community of the classic neighborhood barber in the States (not that I would really know about that with all my visits to Hair Cuttery - I only know it from books and movies). If the old men were regulars, they did not acknowledge one another. Part of me would have enjoyed a waiting room filled with old men telling stories, but it's not in the German nature to talk to strangers, at least not without a couple liters of beer in the belly. Instead, everyone sat in their chairs looking as if their previous appointment was for a root canal.

The Italian barber, veteran immigrant that he is, adopted the German custom of not being talkative, but his lips were curled in a constant Cheshire Cat smile. His movements and features, though not animated or (to northern European/North American eyes) overstated, betrayed his heritage. His forearms had almost as much hair as some of his clients. I watched him over my borrowed copy of Geo, Germany's answer to National Geographic. He worked with concentration, intensity and excellence - the sort of way I imagine the classic Italian artists working. Each of us received a run-of-the-mill men's haircut - no colors or frills, but the results, including mine, were somehow classier and much more attractive, then they would be had we visited a bored stylist who wished he could be sculpting the locks of the new Dutchess of Cambridge, much less a national haircut chain. It was as if each one of my hairs were given love and attention needed to become a better part of a whole.

So, if you are ever in Germany and in need of a haircut, let me make one suggestion. Go Italian.