Giuseppe’s House of Hair

GIUSEPPE’S HOUSE OF HAIR

(An Almost True Story)

By Amy Patricia Mazzuca ________________________________________________________________________

It was Tuesday and Nonna was going to get her hair done.   Nonna never liked to go far from home so for 39 years she had been walking out her front door, across the street, and down one block to the plaza on the corner. That was where Giuseppe’s House of Hair sat between the variety store and the dry cleaners.

It is so close to Nonna’s house; that must be why she goes there, I thought.

Giuseppe didn’t only cut hair at his House of Hair.  If someone was sick, injured, or too old to go out, Giuseppe would pack a ginormous bag. That bag, filled with shampoos, conditioners and colours, curlers, scissors and combs, brushes, a hair dryer and a curling iron, would accompany him to the home of anyone needing their hair done.   Giuseppe would lug that bag across the street, up the stairs, into the elevator, and down the hall to each and every person that couldn’t make it to his House of Hair.

 Giuseppe is a kind man, I thought. Surely that must be why she goes there.

On the first Tuesday of every month Nonna went there just as she had been doing for 39 years.  Her Momma also went to Giuseppe’s House of Hair.  Giuseppe cut boys’ hair too, but my uncles never went to Giuseppe’s to get their haircut. When they were little, Nonna’s boys went to Pasquale’s Barbieri shop down on St. Clair Avenue in Little Italy.  They went with their Poppa, my Nonno.

Hmm… At Giuseppe’s House of Hair Nonna gets some time just for herself, I thought.  That must be why she goes there.

 

 

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