There are only two Truefitt & Hills in the world, and the original London establishment also lays claim as the world's oldest barbershop. Since its founding in 1805, the English Truefitt & Hill has counted every male British monarch from George III to Princes Philip and Charles, among its devoted clientele as well as Winston Churchill, Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, the Duke of Kent, Lord Sainsbury and various members of Parliament, both past and present. After passing through a 120-year-old mahogany apothecary entrance, the visitor to Truefitt & Hill's estimable Michigan Avenue environs reposes in the waiting area (armed with a cookie, a cup of coffee and a copy of Royalty magazine) under framed lithographs of the Great Halls of the country of Kent. One of his venerable peers sits under prints of race horses, smiling distractedly, his pre-manicured hand resting in a pewter finger bowl. Across the room, under a portrait of a whippet, another silver-haired gent peruses the pages of The Wall Street Journal as his shoes are shined.Ah, . . .the 19th Century . . .
'As far as the country went, there was here, to be sure, not much to be said. You pass through a sad-looking, bare, undulating country, with few trees, and poor stone-hedges, and poorer crops; nor have I yet taken in Ireland so dull a ride. About half way between Tralee and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are changed, and where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere else, I think. And I was glad to get over this gloomy tract of country, and enter the capital of Kerry.' William Makepeace Thackeray The Irish Sketch Book
The town Old Bill mentions ('About half way between Tralee and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are changed, and where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere else, I think.') would be Castleisland, County Kerry Ireland. The ancestral haunts.
Thanks to the American Experience, built upon the bones and sinews of American Labor - now under assault from the Maoist of SEIU, this Castleisland scion of 'hideous beggary' was massaged lathered and shaved on the Eve of the Feast of Christ the King in chair of the tonsorial firm of Truefitt & Hill - the barbers of the Royal Family.
As a birthday gift from an extraordinarily delicate, gracious, elegant, witty and beautiful woman of my affections, I got me a Royal Shave.
Yep, at 4:30 P.M. I tossed my lard and bones into the chair operated by Jan at Truefitt & Hill in the Bloomingdale Mega Mall on north Michigan Ave. just as the Festival of Lights was about to get under way.
Jan applied an oinment to my cheeks, jaw and jowls with stern abandon and wrapped my kisser in the requiste hot towel.
I drifted off into a reverie of delight unmatched in commerce of any sort or experience by me short of a bartender's proffering of a perfectly drawn pint - Keegan's Pub by Pintmaster General Bernard Callahan comes close to the match. My profane reveries are limitless.
My thoughts turned, strange to relate, to matters sacred, specifically, to the Feast of Christ the King* and early Mass at Sacred Heart Mission on 116th & Church Street the next morning. I had read about a Jesuit priest who was executed by the Communists in Mexico in 1927 and while chatting with Jan about her days as a barber on North Dearborn Ave. the reading sparked associations between my whiskers and many, many sins.
Jan lathered and scraped at my jaw posts with delicate severity.
Sin and Redemption. Like my shavings each morning, my vanities produce new crops of sins - familiar though more stubborn. The whiskers and transgressions disappear, but briefly and demand new mowings down.
As the second and third Hot Towel mummy treats hit my mug, I remembered the Mexican Jesuit who was placed against the wall:
Blessed Miguel Pro, a Mexican Jesuit who was executed by firing squad on 23 November 1927. He lived at a time of great persecution of the Church in Mexico; religious services were illegal but this didn’t prevent Fr Pro from secretly celebrating the sacraments and promoting the League for the Defence of Religious Freedom. He was arrested and falsely accused of conspiracy against the Government. As the young priest stood before the firing squad he raised his arms in the form of the cross and cried: Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!
I sin and recover; I shave and grow stubble anew. Today's treatment was extra special. Suited for someone more worthy to be sure, but that is just another vanity of mine - Christ calls all, but only stand up guys like Father Pro go to the wall for their God. I sin and shave.
Jan's gentle but muscular ministrations with the razor awakened my dormant sensibilities about ritual and sacramental devotions necessary for leading a good life that have been numbed by my manic attentions to nonsense or business.
The Mass on Sunday attended by good and humble neighbors should have done the same thing for me -again, vanity and pride. The Feast of Christ the King would be different for me and the shame of it is that it took a thoughtful woman's gift of a trip to the Royal barber's chair to scrape some awareness through meditation.
This was one great shave!
Jan, took the scissors to my snot-locker and then took out the hay from my ears - Kerry ornaments. 'That Hickey is real Bog man - look at the tufts of hair sprouting from his ears!' Thackeray may have been appalled by my relatives in the 19th Century, but he would have genuine understanding of vanity and its play on Sin and Redemption.
Before Mass on the Feast of Christ the King I would need to shave again, but the trip to Truefitt & Hill gifted me with a better understanding of my faults and the means of shaving them down. Viva Cristo Rey!
*On 11 December 1925, towards the end of that Holy Year, Pope Pius XI instituted this liturgical celebration as a feast ranked as a Double of the First Class [1] with his encyclical Quas Primas.[2]
The title of the feast was "D. N. Jesu Christi Regis" (Our Lord Jesus Christ the King), and the date was "the last Sunday of the month of October - the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints".[3]
http://romanmiscellany.blogspot.com/2006/11/viva-cristo-rey.html
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