There’s no telling how many thousands of haircuts Jimmy Cerrigione has given in his Windsor barber shop since 1959. But on Wednesday, he gave his very last haircut just after noon.
The 87-year-old barber is finally hanging up his clippers after 70 years spent cutting hair.
“When I started here in town, it was 85 cents a haircut,” he recalled.
It’s a trade he learned in his uncle’s East Hartford barber shop on Burnside Avenue at 14 years old, and a craft he perfected in the Army during World War II after enlisting at 17. He served in the Philippines and Japan.
“It was in general headquarters, CID counter intelligence. And everybody that saw my record said, ‘Wow, were you a spy?’ And I says, ‘No, I was the company barber!’” Cerrigione laughed.
Now, a tremor in his hand has forced him to call it a career, but there were decades worth of memories and mementoes to pack up before the doors closed on New Year’s Eve.
Jimmy said what he'll miss the most are the countless people who sat in his chairs.
“I could tell you right now, they are my family,” he said. “You know, I told the wife, I said, I known all them guys more than I known you. … they’re family to me now.”
Among loyal customers, like Christopher Paulekas of Suffield, the feeling is mutual.
“It’s a friendship, another uncle, another grandfather if you will,” he said.
Paulekas, a West Point graduate, and third generation paratrooper, was one of Cerrigione’s last customers.
“I think Jimmy, he’ll never admit it, he’s too humble, but he’s kind of what I view as a local hero,” Paulekas said. “Always willing to help, always telling stories.”
It’s a quiet end to an era for Cerrigione, who turned down an offer from the town to throw some kind of celebration.
Instead, he simply looks forward to visits from his grandchildren and some time spent in the outdoors.
He’ll also make house calls to a handful of longtime customers who are now bedridden at home.
“I figure, you guys are good enough to come for over 50 years, so now I gotta be good enough until you go,” he said.