And a master barber withsure hands and a warm heart captained.
Today only a few straysfrom that old world remain, like tiny islands of nostalgia. Your Father'sMustache (9855 W. Forest Home Ave.)is one of them. You can still ask for a straight razor shave and a splash ofPinaud. Talk is wide open, jokes still looped.
And master barber andowner Wally Jablonski captains with a big heart, a well of jokes and abillowing laugh.
“So this man goes to thegates of Heaven,” Wally stops cutting and says. “One line has 200 men andanother line nobody. He asks St. Peter and St. Peter says, ‘One line's forpeople who were bossed by the wife and one line for those the wife didn'tcontrol.' So the guy goes in the line with nobody. The Lord says, ‘What're youdoing in this line?' And the guy says, ‘My wife told me to stay in this line.'”
Wally's laugh fills theshop. Sitting in an antique waiting chair across the room, Bernie Bykoski, a30-year customer, announces, “Mostly I come to hear all the jokes for the week.Wally's a good one for that. Bill, too.”
That's master barberBill Jablonski, Wally's cousin, who captains the second barber chair at Your Father'sMustache. Bill is a Vietnamveteran with the 101st Airborne. Wally is a former Marine and also a Vietnamveteran.
Allen Krueger, acustomer for 25 years, explains, “I come a lot of times and I'm here for anhour or so. It's my day.”
A while later, anotherlongtime customer plops in Wally's chair and says, “Don't cut my hair so I looklike Dagwood Bumstead.” Wally blasts another laugh and drapes him with thebarber cloth. He knows the cut.
Historyon Display
Wally's father, himselfa barber, suggested the barbershop's name from the tune “Your Father'sMoustache,” recorded in 1945 by Woody Herman's First Herd. In moments of levitythroughout the tune, the musicians repeat, “Ah, yer faddah's moustache.”
Ah, but then YourFather's Mustache is not just an old-time barbershop. Occupying a Cream Citybrick house built in 1869 by farmer Jacob Wagner, the place is also a miniaturemuseum of wet shaving memorabilia Wally has accumulated over the years.Collectibles dress the walls and pack the display cabinets. “About 25% ofeverything in this shop has been donated by customers,” Wally explains.
He is not exactly surewhy his customers have made the donations. “They come and say, ‘I havesomething for your shop,'” he notes. “I've offered free haircuts or money. Theysay, ‘No, I just wanted it in your shop, because I know you won't sell it.'”
Nothing is for saleexcept a great haircut and a straight razor shave.
The vast collectionincludes 35 out of about 100 shaving mugs in his possession displayed in a bigopen cabinet donated by a customer. Vintage straight razors, double-edge safetyrazors, hanging strops, shaving brushes, hair clippers, barber bottles andscores of other knickknacks are displayed.
A shoeshine stand onceused for a shine by former Vice President Hubert Humphrey sits in one corner.The wall crank phone is the open line. Below it, on the marble counter, an oldcash register cranks up Wally's story machine. “The store clerk was ahippie-type with long hair,” he says, laughing. “He looked at me and said,‘What business you in?' and I said, ‘Barbershop,' and the guy said, ‘Aw, what abummer.'”
The 10-piece oak backbar with its five mirrors, marble counter and two sinks, built in 1889, and thetwo barber chairs, built in 1898, are from a hotel barbershop in Mineral Point,Wis. Wally bought them in 1970 from a retiring barber named Robert Ingles. Onechair has a story: During the Depression, a man, his Cadillac parked with theengine running, swept into Ingles' barbershop and demanded, “I want a shave anda haircut and I want you to keep your mouth shut.”
Afterward, he paidIngles $5, a week's wage for a barber, dashed out and the Caddy sped away. Onlyafter reading newspaper accounts did Ingles discover his customer was thegangster John Dillinger. “I never told a soul in Mineral Point until I foundout Dillinger was killed,” Ingles said to Wally.
Wally says, “So JohnDillinger sat in one of these two chairs.” He pauses. “I've met so manyfascinating people collecting this stuff.”
Perhaps that is onereason why Wally Jablonski is a third-generation barber. That and, like hisfather, doing work that makes him really happy. Your Father's Mustache isproof.
