Hair Cut Time...Again

And Back to Gus the Barber.



As you know from an earlier Blog, every 6 weeks or so I am off to see Gus the Barber.



Yesterday was 'Gus the Barber Day'.



Gus was in Rare Form - I mean - he was Meaner Than Ever.



I met Gus coming up the escalator - he was coming up and I was going down - down to his shop that is. Gus was off for his ubiquitous cigarette break. I asked him to please hurry since I would be waiting for his return. Gus sneered and continued on up the rolling stairs.

He was soon back though, which had more to do with Gus' ability to inhale a cigarette faster than any man on Earth than it did him worrying about me waiting.

In the few minutes I did have, I considered sweeping up the loose hair on the floor beneath his Barber Chair but from past experience realized my finer efforts would go unappreciated and even be resented. So I refrained.

What I did do was to go to his newspaper bench and pull out one of the day's rags. I had no sooner gotten comfortable with it when Gus returned - sneer and all.

I jumped up and headed for The Chair - leaving the newspaper behind.

"That your paper"? asked Gus.

"No, it is one of yours", I replied.

"Put it back" he demands.

I went on to tell him that I had planned to do just that - when the cutting was over ....

"Someone will come in and sit on it and ruin it".

'Someone'?

I refrained from saying that over the course of the last year, I had yet to seen 'Anyone' come and go from his shop save for Yours Truly.

I replaced the endangered paper.

The cutting began.

At this point I am thinking do I just go silent - like the man himself - or do I try to provoke conversation.

Ever a sh** disturber, I go for the latter.

I notice some new pictures Gus has posted up on his wall - one being a pix of himself about age 9 when he was living in Italy. "Good looking kid" I exclaim..."whatever happened to those good looks"?

I can be a devil.

Gus Grunts.

On to another picture, in this one a Gus around age 19 is seen cutting All the hair off a client.

I asked him "why would anyone want all their hair cut off"?

Gus finally breaks silence "If he wanted his head cut-off and paid me, I would do it".

Might be frowned upon in some quarters I respond - Gus Grunts.

We go quiet again.

I try one last thing - knowing that he hates - absolutely hates politics, I ask Gus if he got to Jack Layton's Funeral?

If looks could kill...

Okay - I gave up at this point.

On leaving I always give Gus a good tip - usually as much as $8.00 and I did so yesterday.

I thought for a moment of telling Gus that the tip was for his 'Friendly Service' but thought the better of it.

One, I was not sure how he would react - physically that is and Two, for all his faults, Gus is a Proud Individual.

When I got home and told Anne about my latest Gus experience she asked the expected; "why do I not find another Barber"?

Simple - Gus is the Best.

As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'

My Pre-Election Prediction...

For Ontario's Election this October.

You may recall that I did a similar pre-election prediction for the recent Fed'l Election at which time I called for a Tory win and said that the Libs would have trouble hanging on to official opp status over the NDP.

Just before the polls I did a final prediction - based on my assessment of the polls and called for a Tory minority and Opp Status for the NDP. It turned out I was partially wrong re the Tories - they did of course win but they won by a majority. In the case of the NDP, I called for them to win 101 seats but they actually took 103.

You be the judge on how I did.

But now to the coming Provincial Election - Here Goes.

Recent Polls have the Conservatives at between 34 and 41 %; the Liberals between 32 and 39%; and the NDP between 15 and 20 %.

So what do I see happening:

Same as with the recent Federal Election - The Tories will win, and the Liberals need to watch out for a reinvigorated NDP for second place (i.e. it is too close to call which of the two will form the opposition at this point.)

You may wonder at my prediction given the state of the polls but as many olde pols say - the only poll that counts is the one on Election Day.

And of course olde Dief used to say that Polls were only good for Dogs.

Be that as it may, you heard it here first.

My final prediction - with seat numbers, will follow just prior to the polls opening.

As I see it ...

'K.D. Galagher'

EXERCISE....

Can be bad for your health.

I have two sons-in-law who insist on riding their bicycles to work even though I have warned them both that in a collision with a car - the bike and cyclist lose out 10 times out of 10.

They both politely smile.

And then there is the rest of that earlier generation - all out jogging. And not just for a kilometer or so - Not for Them - nooo they have to run for at least 5 k or it is not worth doing.

I tell them when they reach my age - 62 - they will be on their 5th knee transplant.

They too politely smile back.

What they all lack is my wealth of experience but not from personal experience since I have tried to avoid useless exercise all my life.

To me, exercise should be gained from splitting wood or heaving bales - it simply escapes me why anyone would want to exercise just for the fun of it.

And my philosophy in that regard had held me in good stead- no knee replacements for me.

Now my wife Anne is another story entirely.

Several years ago she went on one of her own 'exercise' kicks. We had taken skiing lessons but had not been all that active on the snow hill front. One day she said enough - we were off to the highest peak around and were headed for the Diamond Run.

We all headed down - Anne - myself and our three children made five - but only 4 got to the bottom.

Anne had blown out her knee about a third of the way down the Diamond.

Next thing I knew I was following Anne, Ambulance bound for the Truro Hospital.

Surgery followed and a knee replacement to this day has not been ruled out.

The only good that came from this was that Anne has spoken less (much less) about the need for exercise.

I was in a neighbourhood store the the other day when the wife of a good friend of mine stop me and suggested, if possible, that I make some time to visit her husband. Apparently he was laid up from a sports injury and was not at all mobile - so some company would be most welcome.

That afternoon - off I went. The dear soul was confined to a cast from ankle to groin. Talk about immobile.

What happened, I enquired. Playing volley ball - the ligament that controls the motion of my leg snapped, he said. In other words, he had no ability to either lift or lower his leg below the knee. He'd been confined in this contraption for approximately three months.

Did it hurt, I asked?

Well yes, but not as much as when I injured my other knee. I then looked at his cast free leg and at the knee which was a mass of scars from previous surgical interventions.

What happened to it, I enquired?

Soccer, he responded.

Well I hope your days of exercise are over I intoned, you can't take much more. He nodded without smiling.

And then just this weekend, I was in a hotel elevator with a chap on his way to a golf tournament.

Quite an extrovert him. Without prompting, he told me that a few years back he had torn his rotator cuff and that this was his first time back at golfing. He allowed that he was not sure if he could even still swing a club but off he went to try.

I thought the guy a masochist.

So exercise - great for dogs but for their owners...

As I see it...

'K.D. Galagher'