Princeton barber reflects on half-century behind the chair

By GREG JORDAN

PRINCETON — John’s Barber Shop is busy on a Friday afternoon. A boy waits for a haircut while barber John Morrello tends to another customer. They are among the thousands who have lined up for haircuts during a career that spans decades.

Morrello thought for a moment when he was asked exactly how long he had been a barber.

“Well, 51. No, 50. I came here in ‘58,” he recalled. “I’ve been in different places. I’ve barbered over on Thorn Street. I’ve worked over in Athens and once in Green Valley. I’ve been here just about all my life.

Morrello came to his present location on the 900 block of Mercer Street in 1963. Antique advertising hangs on the walls of an establishment that has seen a lot of haircuts and overheard many conversations. The building will eventually have to make way for a parking lot that will serve the new Princeton Public Library next door, so he is now looking for a new location.

A new location isn’t the first change Morrello has seen in his long career. Back in 1958, a haircut cost a lot less than it does now, but the sum went a lot further back then, too.

“When I first started, it was more or less a dollar a haircut,” Morrello recalled. “And I tell you, a dollar went somewhere.”

Morrello said that when buying power is considered, he made more profit in late 1950s money than he does in the year 2009. A dollar spent in the 1950s could buy more.

And like many other professions, barbering had to change with the times. Short crew cuts and other short styles gave way to a new look.

“Well, long hair came in and about put us in a depression,” Morrello said. “To survive, we practically had to be a beauty shop. They (customers) wanted that long look and a barber didn’t know how to cut it.”

Morello learned to cut long hair styles his customers wanted; those took a little longer to do than the cuts he provided for his first patrons — sailors of the United States Navy.

“I was a barber in the Navy for two and a half years. I could do about 12 minutes per head; I can’t do that now,” he said.

It was Morrello’s job to cut hair for a destroyer’s crew, about 360 officers and other sailors. Service with the Navy took him everywhere including the vicinity of Korea during the Korean War. His duties included standing watch, but cutting hair was his primary business.

Morrello turned 75 on June 19. A pending move has not put any thoughts of retirement in his mind.

“I hope not. I was once asked when I was going to retire, and I said, ‘When I drop dead behind this chair.’”

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com