Gamaliel Bradford Class of 1958

Donald Lambro

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The following pictures were captured from the TV by Dottie, June 2003

Story in Wellesley Townsman about Father's Barber Shop Sign

Special to The Wellesley Townsman 8-14-07 LAMBRO’S BARBER SHOP SIGN ON e-BAY Wellesley barber Pat Lambro’s son rescues his dad’s sign By Donald Lambro The e-mail message on my computer screen asked if I knew my dad’s weatherbeaten barber shop sign was up for sale on e-Bay as a piece of “vintage Americana.” The query came from former Wellesley Townsman editor Beth Hinchliffe. who tracked me down to my Washington Times newsroom desk. She saw it advertised on e-Bay and, if I was unaware of the auction, thought I would probably want to bid on it. You bet I would, I messaged back, while sheepishly admitting I’d never shopped on e-Bay and, technology-challenged as I was, probably didn’t know how to get on the marketing website in the first place. Thankfully, Beth was kind enough to e-mail me the e-Bay page. I clicked on and there it was: several pictures of my dad’s old wooden sign which had hung over the entrance to his place of business at 5 Crest Road for more than half a century. “Lambro’s Barber Shop” was emblazoned in bold black letters, bracketed by two red and white barber poles. A large black arrow along the bottom pointed down to the door of his shop. Many harsh New England winters had cracked and chipped the paint, giving it a well-worn antique patina, but in tiny, neat letters inconspicuously penned at the bottom was the last name of the painter who designed it: Anderson. My dad, an immigrant who realized the American dream that was built on the business he founded and ran for many decades, passed away in 1995 after a long illness. But that sign was a symbol of his success as a businessman and employer who took pride in serving a large and varied clientele on whom he depended for his family’s livlihood. He made sure that anyone who passed by 5 Crest Road wouldn’t miss the name of his business. “Lambro’s Barber Shop” was painted in large red lettering on a white background over his shop’s long window and, if you missed that, he had “Lambro’s Barber Shop” painted in white on the window’s great green awning, too. The sign over the door was a backup, in case you missed the other two. He wasn’t taking any chances. Reclaiming his sign was like restoring a piece of him that had been lost and now had miraculously reappeared. So after making my bid, I printed out the e-Bay pictures and took them home to tell my wife Jackie of Beth’s e-mail and to plot our next step. The nearly one week auction was off and running, but little did I know that there would be a lot of other bidders. We needed an adviser who knew her way around e-Bay and how to maneuver through the day-to-day auction process. That’s where our next door neighbor Mitzi Moran came to the rescue. An inexhaustibly optimistic bundle of energy, Mitzi knows shopping and, with her witty husband, Bill, a retired Navy captain, has bargained her way through much of the world’s bazars, flea markets, village malls and curio shops, from County Cork to China. I followed the bidding at work, too, and in a few days there were nearly a dozen bids. I thought things had gone about as far as they could go, but Mitzi and Jackie disabused me of that notion. There were others out there, they said, waiting until the last minute when they would swoop in with a higher bid to snatch my dad’s sign away from me. The deadline was on Saturday at 8:15 p.m. and we gathered around Mitzi and her PC at the appointed hour and waited. I had told her ahead of time how much to add to the offer if someone tried to outbid us, yet surely the bidding was over, I thought. But as the final minute came, another bid appeared. Mitzi, her hands flying swiftly across the keyboard, upped the ante in the closing seconds, and after a few brief but very tense moments the words flashed before us: “You got it.” The sign was ours at last. Just how my dad’s sign got onto e-Bay, sold by a vender from North Andover, Mass., remains a mystery. Before my dad’s illness, he was forced to move from 5 Crest Road but relocated a few doors down. The sign was removed and, I suppose, in the confusion of moving and storage, was lost. However, after he died, I found a tiny photo of my dad tucked inside his cash register, taken on a snowy day in front of his 5 Crest Rd. shop by a Wellesley Townsman photographer, I believe. He is coatless and holding a shovel full of heavy snow as he cleared a path to the entrance. The sign is above his head, bright and beckoning in the cold, crisp winter air. I have an enlarged, framed copy of that picture in my study. Now I have the actual sign to go with it. My dad would be delighted to know how his sign magically reappeared on a global internet website long after he had passed away -- still proudly promoting the business he loved and practiced for nearly six decades in the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. (Donald Lambro, son of the late Wellesley barber Pat Lambro, is the chief political correspondent for The Washington Times and a nationally syndicated columnist.)
 

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Revised: 07/01/03.