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SAL: My name is Sal Padavano. I'm 78 years old. I've been a barber now about 53, maybe 54 years.

URI: My name, Yuri. I'll tell you, 45 years experience for barbershop

TONY: My name is Anthony Trotta.

URI: Whoa, Italian guy! Eighty-nine years old, still working barber.

TONY: Ha, ha. You make a living.

URI: My two son: barber. My two son-in-law: barber. My grandson, big guy, strong: working barber. Three brother: barber. Three sister: two is barber. My father: barber.

SAL: My father's father was a barber. He was supposed to have been a champion barber in Sicily . I didn't want to be a barber. My father pushed me into it. He took me out of high school. But I didn't want my sons to do that. It ends with me.

URI: Come, come, come, come! Sit, first chair.

SAL: You're like a psychiatrist. You try to make them feel good.

CUSTOMER: Oh, I'm sorry. I moved my head.

TONY: Can't cut when you're going like this. You want your ear cut or their hair cut?

CUSTOMER: Leave my ears on where they belong.

SAL: I try to kid around, try to make their day. I tell them I'm waiting for a horse named Durante. I figure it'll win by a nose.

CUSTOMER: I've been coming to the track about forty years. I come like every five weeks, six weeks for a haircut. And I look for him. Because he knows what I want. You know? He's my steady barber. I don't know what we're going to do when we're both retired, huh?

TONY: Tell him the truth! Tell him the price is right!

CUSTOMER: Oh, yeah, the price is right. Senior citizens is six bucks.

TONY: Is it up?

CUSTOMER: You gotta turn on.

TONY: You gotta turn it on, okay.

(Sound of racetrack from television.)

CUSTOMER: You got a couple of winners for me, Tony?

SAL: Tony gives you tips all the time. He gave me a tip the other day. It came out last!

TONY: The one horse in the first race.

CUSTOMER: One horse, yeah. I'll give you the fifth race. One in five.

TONY: One in five. You got it straight from the soul, huh? Right from the heart. Okay.

URI: Is massaging head. Is okay?

CUSTOMER: Yeah, beautiful.

SAL: Like I remember when I went to barber school, a bunch of barbers said, "You know we're like prostitutes. Like somebody likes their favorite prostitute or something. And the guy wanted to hit him, but I knew what he meant. Some people like a barber, even if another barber maybe cuts better hair, he's satisfied, just to be comfortable with him."

URI: This cologne. The best. Please, thank you. Have a nice day. Good luck.

TONY: Goodbye. Good luck.

CUSTOMER: See ya, Tony. See ya at Aqueduct. So long.

Producers: Eliza Bettinger and Brett Myers / Excecutive Producer: David Isay / Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Photograph by Samuel Herzlinger. Special thanks to Ani Mukherji.

"Barbers of Belmont" premiered October 25, 2004, on Morning Edition. Copyright © 2004 Sound Portraits Productions. All Rights Reserved.

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This piece is available in the following audio formats [3:18 min]:
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		transcript

		Belmont Park Web site

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