Lawrence the Barber

?????? It has been almost sixty years since we buried my grandfather, whom I think of most every day since I have a photo on my desk at home of his presiding at the dining room table on Codman Hill Avenue. I was the first grandson and was named after him.

My grandfather came to this country early in the 20th century and he and his father proceeded to bring over the rest of the family. There were six children in all, of whom four married someone from the same village in which they had grown up.

He rented space from Kasanof’s Bakery and opened a barber shop on Blue Hill Avenue, between Dudley Street and Grove Hall and catered to most everybody.? He never charged a priest or a minster or a rabbi for a haircut.? His associate was Simon Hadley, a Greek man who survived the Holocaust because the Nazis needed to have a barber available.

When I was 8 years old, my grandfather suffered a massive stroke from which he never recovered. He had suffered a heart attack a few years earlier but his Italian doctor, who I expect was also overweight and also smoked, never told him to change his lifestyle. The last 6 ? years of his life were hardly fun.

I think of him often now that my right arm is paralyzed, as his was. I think of him when I do my best to sign my name with my left hand knowing that at one point I saw him sign his name by making an “x” on a piece of paper. He did not have health insurance, given that Medicare had yet to be created.

My grandfather spoke with great difficulty as a result of the stroke; he spoke broken English, anyway. I understood him quite well as did my mother and my grandmother.

My brother Vinny and I would sit and watch baseball games with him, given that the Red Sox were one of his few pleasures. ?The television was an early small black and white model inside a wooden cabinet, probably dating from the late 1940s. He would sit in the chair which was part of the living room set which may have dated back to my grandparents’ wedding in 1911 or soon thereafter. Behind him was a photograph of my mother serving as a flower girl for her Aunt Josie, perhaps in 1920 or so.

He was especially fond of Frank Malzone, one of the first Italian players signed by the Red Sox. Malzone was a wonderful clutch hitter and an all-star third baseman.? Unlike the 1930s and 1940s Yankees, the Red Sox have never aggressively recruited Italian ballplayers to fill the seats at Fenway Park; probably a mistake.?

One day, Vinny was sitting with our grandfather watching a game. He sat up, took his cane and stopped to stand at attention for the National Anthem; he then walked, fell and broke his hip; he died soon thereafter.

I was the altar boy at his funeral. The evening before, my mother told me that Vinny and I would be picked up by our Godfather and brought to school.? [I had actually thought I might enjoy a day off!] She then told me that she knew I had a cross-country meet, that she and my father didn’t expect that I would win, but they expected me to finish, which I did! ?That was good lesson for me for the rest of my life.

I think of my grandfather frequently.