“Looking for a Good Barber”

By kiki

Moving to La Puente in 1968 from East Los Angeles, I needed to decide where I was going to get a haircut: find a new barber in La Puente or keep going to Manuel's Barber Shop on Brooklyn Ave, just west of the Maravilla Projects, in ELA, where I had gotten my haircuts for the last few years, I've decided to keep going to Manuel's and did so for the next three or four years. Then Manuel died. He was only about 32 years old.

Soon after Manuel died, I talked to my cousin Henry and told him how I needed an excellent barber. Henry told me to go see Jimmy at 'Jimmy's Scissor-cut' on Valley Blvd and Puente Ave and to be sure to tell Jimmy that "Big Henry" sent me. I think Henry was looking to get ten percent of whatever business he sent Jimmy's way or at least a free haircut. Jimmy and his son, One Eye Dino, were two great barbers. From the early '70s till around 1998, when Jimmy died and the shop was closed, they were my barbers. One Eye Dino died a year after his dad. Back in the days of T.V. network boxing. Jimmy's Scissor-Cut was the place for boxing fans to go see the fights and drink beer…Man! How I miss those by-gone days at Jimmy's

I now go to an old barber on Main Street in Old Town La Puente. But sometimes he doesn't show up; he is, after all, in his early 80's, I think. So I have to look around for a barber when the old guy doesn't show up. To be sure, there are a few barbershops in town, but the ones cutting hair in those shops are not barbers. I've been to a few of them, and the first thing I do is ask the barber to let me see their's barber's license. If they don't have one, I walk!! And I've done lots of walking. Maybe I should call the migra! Naw, I wouldn't do that.

One time I let one of them "barbers" cut my hair, man! Did he mess me up? I left the barber shop-I'm going to get a bit salty here, looking like a "fresh-f*^ked Tom Cat" When I got home, and Connie saw my haircut, she started laughing hard, I think she wet her pants. How could that lady be so cold and mean?! I stayed indoors for over two weeks waiting for my hair to grow back before I would go out in public again!!

Some people have told me, "Hey, it's just hair, it'll grow back" I tell them, "yes, but it's my hair"! Besides some good and bad memories, my hair is all I have left from my youth. So hell yes!! I'm picky about my hair!!!