the master of sacramento street

After my haircut I asked to take Mr. A's photo and I was surprised when he agreed, though I've chosen to share only a glimpse of he and his precinct, in hopes of honoring the spirit of the temple he's created.

He's been here on Sacramento Street for over 40 years. The sign on the window is hand-painted, fading. There are two barber chairs--they came with the place he says--but only one Mr. A and so only one chair is used, the other covered by a large white sheet.

The shop is cluttered yet serene. An old wood-burning stove--it came with the place--slumps near a corner. The San Francisco Chronicle is neatly folded on a chair and magazines hang on the wall on wooden poles. A Japanese calendar and a Japanese print of a crane flying through the air are other notable adornments. And though there are hundreds of other visual images, everything looks as if it's in its right place.

As Mr. A cuts your hair, the phone may ring. He answers, deliberately, when there is that grace period between the process of cutting your hair and the number of times a phone may ring before it stops, and says "barber shop" and books a future appointment, for he is appointment-only, and then resumes cutting your hair as if nothing at all had intervened.

He still uses scissors, more than he uses an electric shaver, and takes the time to lather you around the ears and neck and shave you with a straight-edge. Several times during a haircut he vacuums your head and all the cuttings disappear into the large green Shop-Vac that sits in the middle of the shop like a Buddha.