Sunday,
November 18, 2007
Mike Prontera,
Barber of
The
ANNOTICO Report
"Mike" Prontera was a tank machine-gunner for the Italian army in
"I would cut
hair sometimes from 8 in the morning until 11 at night," Mike says.
"The Americanos would come from all over to get
haircuts. And to eat at our camp. Because we are
Italiano, you know the food was so much better."He
was about to be shipped out to fight against
He went home to
In 1947 he opened
his
He cut the hair
of dozens of Pacific Coast League baseball players. Such as
Yankee manager
But mostly, Mike
has been the barber for generations of the Italians of Rainier Valley. The
bakery Borracchinis are his customers. So are the
sausage Obertos. The political Rosellinis
A Tonic for Modern-Day Angst
Seattle Times
By Danny Westneat
Sunday, November 18, 2007
"Mio Dio!" says Mike. "You must relax, or your hair
won't grow back."
I'm sitting in
the chair of honor in Mike's Barbershop, in
Aaahhh. Now that is what people still come
from miles around and generations across to get. A cut.
A massage. A taste of
"Mamma mia," Mike says, as my eyes roll back into my head.
Mostly they come
for Mike. His 10-foot-wide tan shop isn't in the phone book. A tiny barber pole
outside long ago lost its red, white and blue striping.
Mike claims he
doesn't want any more customers. But the customers keep coming. And so at age
90 he keeps showing up, 8 a.m. 'til 2, as he has since he opened his first shop
a block from the sea in
Last week, a
64-year-old retired
Sixty years with
some of the very same customers. Some pay in bottles of wine. Some pay in
lottery tickets. Some don't pay at all because he won't let them.
Another is Steve
Roberts. He's a checker at the QFC around the corner. He says he's barely
qualified to talk about Mike's shop because he's only been coming for 10 years.
"There's
nothing like it," Roberts says, after getting his trim and massage.
"Nobody cuts hair like this anymore."
There's a sign in
Mike's shop that reads, "Please, no conversations on politics or
religion." Few obey it. Least of all Mike.
See, he knows a
thing or two about diplomacy. He fought on both sides in World War II.
He was a
machine-gunner in a tank for Mussolini's army in
The
"I would cut
hair sometimes from 8 in the morning until 11 at night," Mike says.
"The Americanos would come from all over to get
haircuts. And to eat at our camp. Because we are
Italiano, you know the food was so much better."
He was about to
be shipped out to fight against
He went home to
In 1947 he opened
his
He cut the hair
of dozens of Pacific Coast League baseball players. Such as
Yankee manager
But mostly, Mike
has been the barber for generations of Garlic Gulchers,
the name given the Italians of Rainier Valley. The bakery Borracchinis
are his customers. So are the sausage Obertos. The political Rosellinis.
He used to give
shaves with a straight razor, until the state government asked him to stop (too
dangerous, they said).
He also boasts he
once cut the hair of the pope. I'm pretty sure he was kidding.
"It's all a
family to me," Mike says. "That's why I don't retire. I want to die
before I retire."
No sign of that.
For his 90th birthday this year, he went to Vegas.
"Maybe 10
more years," he says.
It has been said
over and over that
It isn't all
true. For proof, take an hour to sit in Mike's chair. You'll feel old
Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him
at dwestneat@seattletimes.com.
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:
Italia
Italia
Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net