Message from Pete

hair cutting days. back in the mid 40's i sometimes ventured to hunnel's barber shop on 1st accross from pat's market. it was a fun trip for several reasons. but first to say that we usually got cut at home from vaari. the first cuts were brutal cuz we didn't have electric clippers but clippers that operated kind of like scissors. and they pulled and pulled, especially if they started to pull and you jerked your head away. vaari would say oh, oh. usually you said oh oh if you left a good one. so oh oh had at least two meanings back then. what a great day when vaari came home from niemela's store on tamarack with electric clippers. but now back to hunnel's but first to say that shypoke hillstrom would get cut by his mom and after she was about half done and he well butchered, she would send him off to mc kinstry's barbershop on hecla with 50 cents and have him finish the job. back to hunnels. hunnel was cheap. sometimes only 15 cents if you gave him the customary quarter. which meant ten cents went accross the street to pat's market for a cone. the shop was sometimes filled with about 10 people waiting. and that was good cuz each time hunnel would finish a customer and say next a new customer would take the chair and during that time hunnel would pass out camel cigarates. what a treat not to have to have a gutter butt. so sometimes you could have many treats. whenever a drunk was sleeping and his turn came up, hunnel would whisper to the next guy to take the seat and let the drunk sleep it off. when your turn finally came, hunnel would say very softly, "how are you today young man, how's the family and are you doing good in school?" his voice was so soft that we secretly called him the 'she' barber. and all this and a dime left over for a cone accross the street. mes