ROTHENBURGER — Crisis hits hair care – John DeCicco retires

COLUMN — The health care crisis is bad enough, but now there’s a crisis in hair care — John DeCicco has closed the doors on more than half a century of barbering.

A couple of weeks ago, when my family doctor announced he’s shutting down his practice, I was shocked and worried. Losing your barber takes things to a whole new level.

Unlike the closure of my GP’s practice, John’s retirement wasn’t a surprise, since he’s had his Continental Barber Shop up for sale for quite awhile, and I knew he had a deal in the works. Still, when he told me this week that Thursday would be his last day as owner, I was left out of sorts.

To make things worse, I got busy on Thursday and forgot all about going in for some of his wife Darlene’s baking to mark the last day. My plans for one last haircut were scattered like so many clippings on the floor of his shop.

I know someone else is taking over the business, and that John will show up once in awhile to fill in when he’s needed, but it will never be the same. ‘The shop,’ as everyone knew it, has been a special place for decades.

I’d saunter in, tell him “I need a haircut” and take a seat in one of his big comfortable barber chairs.

“Just put a little on top,” I’d joke.

“I’m good, but I’m not that good,” he’d say.

People would come and go, some for haircuts, some for a visit. About half the people who came through the front door didn’t need a haircut, just a need to talk about politics, or to complain about the parking kiosks. They always did most of the talking. John’s a good listener.

He wasn’t my barber for all that long — less than 10 years. Before John, I went to Lino’s for a long time, until Lino moved his shop to the North Shore. It was handier for me downtown, so I switched to the Continental.

John was justifiably proud of his shop and his barbering. If you were going to allow somebody to wield a straight razor on your throat, John was the guy you’d want doing it.

One time, when we were hosting a delegation from our Japanese sister city, he managed to work a visit to his shop into the itinerary, giving a quick trim to one of the delegates.

In City council meetings, he’d invariably begin his councillor’s report with, “People come into the shop, they say, ‘John, what’s going on?’ I say, ‘I dunno, I’ll find out.’

And then, of course, there were the political polls. Every election, local, provincial or federal, he’d run a Barber’s Poll (get it, as in ‘barber’s pole’?). The only time he got it wrong was when his poll predicted I’d lose the mayoral election.

“Just shows you the Barber’s Poll isn’t always right,” I said on election night after the results were in.

But most times, he was bang on. Like the last provincial election, when every pollster in the province was predicting an easy NDP win. John’s poll forecast a Liberal landslide, which seemed whacky at the time, but you know what happened. I tweeted after the count was finished that all the big public-survey outfits should have hired John DeCicco to do their polling.

I realize I’m talking about him as though he just died, and that he’ll still be around, and we’ll probably still go for coffee together once in awhile.

But at the moment, I’m in need of a trim and have no idea where I’ll find one, at least not one as good as I’ve gotten used to from John at the shop.

Mel Rothenburger can be contacted at armchairmayor@gmail.com. He tweets @MelRothenburger and is on Facebook.com/mrothenburger.7.