"S, Double N, Double 2, 4T. L, A, U, Lau. I am garden keeping garden cleaning." From October 1994 until February 1995 I used to here this line repeatedly on our Tuesday and Thursday visits to the mental hospital outside of Queenstown, South Africa. I have to admit, I had no idea what the heck, sorry, this was in South Africa so I should use the proper language. I had no idea what the hell the guy that kept repeating this line was saying. It took a little time to understand him and then one day as I was in between shaves I was standing by Mr. L, A, U Lau. He would always spell out his name and then repeat it. Anyway, Mr. Lau was reading our license plate number on the back of our car - SNN224T. He was then telling us who he was and what he did hoping we would hire him to take care of our garden or yard. Mr. Lau was one of my favorite people. He sounded a lot like Yoda from Star Wars. It was funny.
Mr. Lau is the guy to the left of me in the green sweater. Looks like a good clean shave. I came by it naturally - Grandpa Al was a barber - or did he go by beautician?
As you have probably gathered our service at this mental hospital was to shave the patients heads and faces. We used old double edge razor blades on and old razor. I hated this service. It smelled bad, the guys were weird and it was almost too much to handle. When I say smelled bad I am referring to not only the shaving cream - not Gillette Foamy or Babersol, no it was something out of a tube that we had to lather all up. Wasn't my favorite. Other smells were of the human kind - bathroom problems. The other nasty thing about it was the blood. You know, a little hair, a little skin. It was all good.
So there I was not real thrilled about our service in the area and found myself in my scriptures reading Mosiah chapter 2. I read about King Benjamin serving his people. I read verse 17 and the words 'when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." My perspective began to change, no actually it immediately changed and this was my favorite service from my mission.
I stopped looking at the things that were not so pleasant about the service. The smell stopped bothering me, the blood - I got really good and that became minimal. I began to see these men, and one woman by the way - different ward but wanted a shaved head, very soft scalp, it was weird - anyway I saw them differently. I learned to love them for who they were and nothing else mattered. This is how I came to know Mr. Lau. Then there was the crazy ex-boxer guy. I called him divot because when we finally shaved his head it looked like a really bad driving range t box. This was not from the razor mind you. It was just divots in his head. Made me wonder about his past.
Did you see the guy on the opposite end of Lau in the picture? How about that goatee? We could do custom - well, I could do custom. I don't know if I should share the Elder Bell story but what the heck, I mean hell. It was his first time following his transfer into the area and we had a busy morning. Two stations for shaving, one for each of us. Two good size lines. I set to work and had it going strong. Bell got this guy for his first that had a pretty good afro. He set to work. I occasionally glanced over to see how it was going. It was slow and it was bloody. I was moving my line pretty well and he was still on his first guy. He had started in the back and there was a healthy patch of afro on the top front still. Bell had a stroke that went a little deep and well, it was bloody. It all kind of ran up and got caught in the afro. The guy had no idea he was bleeding - that was probably to our benefit. Anyway, it was like a collective movement as those in line saw the horror of it all and they slid over to my line. Bell got better after a couple visits but that first day was a rough one. I lovingly referred to him as the scalper from then on.
Sorry side story but it was one I shared with the kids as they just wanted to hear more and more. I figured I should just include it here as well.
I was mentioning custom cuts. I loved to do it. I gave one guy a spiral cut. Well a spiral shave. It was fantastic. I didn't leave it, just had a little fun with the razor that day. There was however one guy that always wanted a shave. He was first to approach us every Tuesday and Thursday morning. "Yaceba" he would say as he would rub his face. We had a lot of people to shave and at best they were on an every other visit type schedule. Not this guy. I decided he needed to be my customer exclusively. Incidentally, Yaceba is Xhosa for shave. Their is a click on the c off the front of the tongue and the teeth. Anyhow, hard to write here how it sounds. I decided an experiment would be fun and so I began to leave a little bit of a mohawk. He had no idea it was there and this went on for over a month.
Transfers came and I was leaving the area. On my last visit to the hospital my friend approached as we entered. He looked me crooked in the eye, rubbed the top of his head and said "Yaceba, yaceba!" Off came the hawk. It was a sad day to be sure. It is almost embarrassing now to say this but you know, I was 21. The hawk was a fun experiment. I had no idea it would take him as long as it did to find it and I thought it was pretty cool. I am not at all embarrassed about the mohawk but it is the little dot of hair on the back of his head that I didn't shave that is perhaps a little embarrassing to admit. It was great. I used all of my commitment pattern skills on Bell to ensure that the dot remained. I know, it was a cruel thing to do. Not the dot, that was great. No I am thinking about Bell shaving that thing off and just how much skin he took with it. I am only joking here people.
So here is my exclusive customer and the Mohawk. Yes that is me there with him - yes I had blond hair back in the day. Don't know what happened to that, I still see myself as a blond hair blue eyed kid and it freaks me out every time I see a picture of myself with dark hair. How about those shorts and socks?
Wow, good memories. The kids certainly enjoyed it. As I opened up my Mission box to find the pics I saw lots of pics and lots of stories. I think I might just have to record more of these.
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