Sorry to hear about the passing of another downtown South Deerfield mainstay. Leo Rotkiewicz, longtime owner of  Leo’s TV, died last week.

My fondest memories of Leo take me back nearly four decades, to the days when our rooftop antennas pulled in three or four boring, black-white-channels and Leo had the only color TVs in town in his showroom; all Zenith’s.

Those were also the glory days of afternoon World Series ballgames, when schoolkids hid pocket-sized transistor radios in their pants pockets, ran the earplug wires under their belts, inside their shirts, up their torsos and down the sleeves to secretly pick up the broadcasts in the classroom. We’d cup the earphone deep in our palm and listen to the games by leaning an ear to our hand and flattening it to insert the listening device. On an important play or home run, we had to contain ourselves from jumping to our feet, settling instead on discreet eye contact, winks and nods, as the teacher droned toward the 3 o’clock bell. Believe me, we were as anxious as the teacher.

By the time the bell sounded, the game would be in the third or fourth inning and we’d sprint cross-lots to Leo’s to catch the last five or six innings in vivid color. Kids weren’t the only people in town visiting Leo’s on World Series days. A cross-section of the community could be found there, talking, watching baseball, roting against the Yankees, shooting the breeze.

Leo was no fool. He knew World Series games were his best marketing tool to sell color TVs, that people would go home determined to have one of the new, space-aged products in their living room. There were no malls back then. If you wanted a TV, you went to the local dealer. That way you could get it repaired when it broke down.

My lasting memory from the World Series at Leo’s was Sandy Koufax’s 15-strikeout masterpiece at Yankee Stadium in 1963. The stylish lefty had the likes of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Bobby Richardson, Elston Howard, Clete Boyer, Moose Skowran, Joe Pepitone, Tony Kubek and Tom Tresh eating out of his left hand. First he’d blow his 100-mph fastball by them, then make them look silly with his 12-to-6 curveball. That pitching performance on a crisp autumn day in the Bronx was the centerpiece of a four-game Los Angeles Dodgers sweep that was welcome in Red Sox land.

It was Leo Rotkiewicz who brought it to South Deerfield in living color. Now he’s gone with most of the other downtown merchants from that era. Fading memories.

I got my first taste of bird hunting on the lower west slope of North Sugarloaf in South Deerfield, along a power line where we roamed as kids and flushed many “patridge.”

The flushes surprised us as made our many ascensions up the west face of the mountain to the Indian cave hollowed out of the southern tip, providing a breathtaking Pioneer Valley vista. Legend has it that King Philip himself used that shelf cave and another like it on Mount Sugarloaf as 17^th century lookouts.

The gun laws were much looser back in the 60’s, when we’d “borrow” a couple of my friend’s father’s field-beater shotguns — one, as I recall, a single-shot 20 gauge, the other a .410/.22 caliber over-and-under — and head for the power line to try our luck on ruffed grouse. My friend, “The Count,” always referred to them affectionately as “grey ghosts,” which he undoubtedly picked up from his father, a devoted grouse hunter and fly fisher.

Hunting licenses were optional for peach-fuzzed boys back then. At least we never felt a need for one. Those were for men, we reasoned, and perhaps we were wrong, but no uniformed official ever corrected us. We never used a bird dog in those days, either. The two of us just worked together, walking along opposite edges of the narrow power line — sumac stands and wild raspberry bushes between us, wild grapes along the edges — trying to flush ghosts, grey ones that that disappear as fast as they startle you.

Of course, the flush was the easy part, hitting them another story altogether. The Count would walk five or 10 steps as I stood sentry, then I’d walk five or 10 while he’d stood on the alert, ready to mount, swing and fire. We knew the location of every cluster of wild grape vines along that stretch of real estate, every wild apple tree, every juniper and we’d approach them with a heightened sense of anticipation. But even on that open power line, in areas where we anticipated action, the partridge had a way of flushing behind a tree or directly into a blinding sun to survive. Sometimes they’d even reveal their presence by drumming before we moved in on them and still they’d flush and disappear before we could find them near the end of our barrel. That’s why The Count and others choose to call them grey ghosts, because all you get is a sound, a flash and they’re gone. That’ll never change, whether hunting behind champion bird dogs or scouring old pastures and swamps dog-less in adolescent bliss.

Times have changed since for me since then. I never hunt without a dog anymore, and The Count resides three-quarters of the way cross-country. However, one thing will never change regarding ruffed grouse: They are the most elusive game bird in the Northwoods.

I have found other hunting buddies over the years, still make time for bird hunting, and can’t help but think back to that lower western slope of North Sugarloaf every time I visit a grouse covert. One such experience came during a pleasant Saturday afternoon in early November. I was accompanied by Jon Cook, who shares my passion for bird hunting and dogs, not to mention my Connecticut Valley bedrock. During our recent pheasant-hunting travels, I kept promising “Cooker” that I’d show him a secret grouse covert I share with few men. That day arrived on a weekend. We didn’t want to battle the pheasant-hunting crowds.

We arrived at the spot, today posted tight, after noon with two experienced English Springer Spaniels of related pedigrees — his 9-year-old bitch, Henna, and my 5-year-old male, Ringo. Both have boundless energy and a love for flushing and retrieving game birds, and both can get grouse-crazy in a hurry.

It didn’t take long for Cooker to give the site his stamp of approval. Less than a half-hour into our hunt, we met in a damp hollow following seven flushes and one kill. Cooker looked across a wooded marsh, wiped his brow and said, “Hey Bags, I won’t be telling anyone about this spot. I’m gonna save it for us.” That was great news to me, because good grouse coverts are worth shrouding in secrecy.

Cooker’s enthusiasm for the site had nothing to do with the blood dripping from scratches on his neck or my arms, or the sanguine stain on Ringo’s shoulders and chest. You learn to live with wounds hunting an old orchard overgrown with juniper, bull briar, raspberries and multiflora-rose, all of which are magnets to grouse and many other birds and wildlife. Of the aforementioned vegetation, you must respect the bull briar and rosebush most, skirting the dense patches until you find a thin enough spot to carefully squeeze through. Even smart dogs understand that. Learn the hard way. And it’s no different for humans. If you try to barge through bull-briars, get tangled and fall, it may require a trip to the doctor for stitches. The thorns are that sharp and unforgiving, and they can snag you totally motionless until you figure out the safest way to get untangled, which usually requires dropping it into reverse, gingerly.

Of course, the rosebushes, sumac stands and unpruned apple trees also provide a dense screen for wing-shooters, which is good news to grouse being pursued by an experienced gun dog. The birds seem to understand that the key to surviving a flush is remaining concealed behind cover for the first 20 or 30 yards, so that by the time they show themselves for an instant, it’s too late for the shooter, even though he’s heard the flush and is anticipating a sighting. The problem is that that sighting is often too brief and faraway.

We were confronted by such scenarios many times on that Saturday and came away with the one partridge from 15 or 20 flushes. Sure, our chances would have been better had we hunted one dog between the two of us, and it sure would have been nice if a few woodcock flights had been waiting there for us as well. But partridge hunting isn’t about killing, it’s about challenge and camaraderie, fresh air and exercise. Furthermore, an experienced wing-shooter worth his salt has learned to respect the ruffed grouse as a regal resident of our woodlands. That’s why he keeps his coverts secret and refuses to overharvest his prey.

You hunt grouse on their turf and terms and, when lucky, you come away with a bird here, a bird there. Nearly every time you bag one it’s the result of a quick, skillful, thoroughly rewarding wingshot at a small grey ghost squirting through thick cover. You shoulder the scatter gun, snap off a quick shot, see the bird tumble and stand in amazement.

That’s grouse hunting. The ultimate.

Must be that I’m getting old, because it seems that the characters from my South Deerfield roots are dropping like flies these days. Pint Szelewicki, Henry Boron, George Gromacki, Billy and Leo Rotkiewicz, Paul Whalen, Mike Rura, Paul Giorgioli, all the downtown fixtures gone but not forgotten by those of us who patrolled the four corners of old downtown “Sow-deer-feel.”

Now this: The “Big B” is gone. Bernie Redmond himself. Sixty-nine years old. Too young. But the Big B did it his way, with style.

I wouldn’t consider Big B a downtowner, although you could find him at the Polish Club or, in the old days, at Whalen’s Hot’l Warren. Not only that but he was stationed for many years at the Candlelight Restaurant, known in the vernacular as “The Bulb,” when older brother Francis owned it, on the site of the current “Butterfly Zoo.” But my fondest memories of Bernie Redmond were the days he spent umpiring on Pioneer Valley baseball diamonds. He and Franny did many a country ballgame on a Sunday afternoon, and they did it with a flair that’s been lost for some time at the old ballyard. As I recall, Franny played the role of the straight man and the Big B, well, he was just the Big B, and he stayed that way till the bitter end despite health problems that complicated matters.

The Big B worked hard, played hard, and died hard … with a smile on his face. When the doctors took half his leg off a few years ago, the result of circulatory problems brought on by adult sugar diabetes, a close friend who had been pleading with him to change his lifestyle visited him in the hospital.

“Still drinking, B?” he asked.

“Is the Pope Catholic?” was the response.

Say what you will about that answer, but it was classic Big B, always colorful with a heavy dose of stubborn. And it was this streak of color that separated him from his umpiring colleagues in the valley.

If he gets behind the plate in the life after, somewhere up there in the heavens, he’ll wreak havoc with the old Lake Hitchcock bed. The bedrock will shake with his emphatic, baritone “Steeeeeeeee-rike-ah” rattling the ledges. I’ve heard that call bounce off the red rocks of Mt. Sugarloaf as a Little Leaguer, and I’ve heard it echo off North Sugarloaf’s ledges of the same color on a hot, humid Sunday afternoon in July at the old Frontier Regional School diamond, where he and brother Fran would be doing an American Legion Baseball game.

Although the unique strike call was his trademark as an umpire, the Big B had many other unforgettable quips in his repertoire. Perhaps the best was his response to the commonly issued “You missed that one, Blue,” barb from the dugout, or better still, batter’s box. His response was priceless, not to mention highly effective. “Not with a bat I wouldn’tuv!” he’d bellow. End of discussion.

Or how about his memorable called third strike, when the time was right. It’d be “Steerike-ah three — dig, dig, dig for the dugout.” Tell me, how could anyone argue with that one? It was his way of congratulating the pitcher for freezing a batter with an unhittable two-strike pitch. And it was his way of keeping a sometimes tedious game moving, spicing it up with a gourmet touch.

The Big B even had a comeback for the fellas behind the backstop accusing him of being blind or needing glasses. He could take the barbs from back there with the best of them, but on the few occasions when he’d heard enough, he’d remove his mask, walk back toward the hecklers, point to the sky and say, “You see that sun up there? We’ll it’s 20 million miles away and I can see it just fine. I can assure you that I’m having no problem with a ball right in front of my face.”

Perfect. Classic Big B.

Now he’s up there somewhere, near that blinding sphere he used to point at. And he’s undoubtedly still calling them as he sees them. … No! Forgive me. I almost forgot. The Big B was clear about that, too. “I don’t call them as I see them,” he barked at more than one loudmouthed ballpark junkie, “I call them as they are!”

There was only one Big B. Now there are none.

I went through the wake, the funeral and a reception, spoke to many and wrote only ”Andy, 13” in my notebook. He’s Tommy Valiton’s grandson, lives in Austin, Texas, left an indelible impression.

I spotted the boy with the kind, smiling eyes opposite me in the J-shaped greeting line and knew immediately who he was. They were Tommy’s eyes, and the kid had Tommy written all over him across the bridge of his nose and brow. When I reached him and shook his hand, I looked directly into those warm, light-blue eyes and could have sworn I was looking at Tommy 60 years ago. And although I may never see the kid again, it was comforting to know that as I bid a dear friend adieu, his young sprout stood in the same room, the spitting image of his grandfather.

Isn’t it strange how laying a friend to rest opens a window into his life. Perhaps that’s the purpose of the ceremonies: to stir memories, bring back the smile, the guttural laugh, the heart-to-hearts. You think of the qualities you loved and will miss most. With Tommy it was his enthusiasm, his warm heart, fierce competitive spirit, fiery anger. Tommy had great passion, an extraordinary teammate, I am certain. But I was not his teammate and cannot articulate what it meant to be one. That’s the problem with sitting here writing a farewell to Tommy. You could literally write a book if you covered all the bases, spoke to everyone whose life he touched in the two rival communities he represented — the Mohawk school district he called home and the Frontier district where he taught. Maybe he’s the reason that rivalry has lost its intensity.

I’ve heard the stories about Tommy’s unbeaten/untied Arms Academy football team and his stolen-base record at the University of Maine, but those are tales for others to tell. I didn’t know that Tommy, and never heard him blow his own horn about those athletic feats. Far too humble for that. Myself, I first knew him as Coach, then Tommy, even ”Tomcat” once in while when he performed well in the field, which was often.

I suppose my lasting image will always be the slick, tightly packed hole driven into the dirt between his feet along the Frontier baseball bench. He had over the years literally dented the earth with his Louisville Slugger fungo bat, taped halfway up the handle, always in his hands during a ballgame or practice, a tool of his trade. Come to think of it, he had to carry that bat, because when he laid it across his thighs he wanted a bunt. Although I can’t recall him ever giving me that signal, I knew it and looked for it despite wanting no part of it.

Tommy the coach was all about fundamentals and execution: baserunning, walk-off steals, first-and-thirds; cutoffs, cutoffs, cutoffs; relays, relays, relays; rundown rotation; knowing where to be and being there. That’s all Tommy ever demanded — that you knew the game — and he’d drill it into you every day in practice. Rain or shine, hot or cold, indoors or out, he taught the fundamentals, knowing they’d be the difference between winning and losing the tight ones.

No one stole more runs than Tommy. He was the master. Learned from brothers Jim and Jack Butterfield, his coachs at Arms, then Maine. The Butterfields had demanded sound fundamental play from him, and he demanded the same from us, all of us. And we were better for it. Strike out on a curveball in the dirt or fastball up-and-away, let a bad hop skip past your backhand, or overthrow a rushed play from deep in the hole and you were spared. Part of the game. But miss a sign or cutoff man, forget to back up a throw, or get suckered on a defensive first-and-third situation and that’s when the fungo would crash into the turf with vicious fury, him pounding it loudly into that hole like he was trying to drive a spike to China.

That was Tommy: forgiving of physical mistakes, merciless about mental ones. If insightful you knew that even during his angriest moments Tommy was faking it. Behind that red face, wild eyes and bulging jugular was a gentle, kind-hearted, caring soul who wanted more than anything else to see you succeed, experience the satisfaction of getting it right under pressure by applying practice skills to game-time situations.

Give Tommy mediocre ballplayers and he’d routinely outexecute his foes to beat them. Give him real talent and he’d win it all as he did with his 1978 state-championship team.

Again, I never saw Tommy play ball, was never his teammate, but I watched him hunting pheasants with me in the fall and can judge his attributes as a teammate from that experience. He’d be there at 8:30 a.m. sharp, or earlier, never late, wearing a broad, enthusiastic, maybe even devilish grin that would shake me joyously from the fatigue of short sleep. His joy of life was contagious, consumed you like a loving mother embracing a toddler saved from the well. In deep cover with alder obstructions it was all about teamwork to Tommy, constant encouragement, being in the right place, covering the flank, exuberant upon success. ”Atta boy, Bags!” he’d holler triumphantly from the other side of the alders, then later he’d hear it from me, ”Atta Boy, Tommy!” after tumbling a cackling rooster from the cool fall sky. We worked well together, like brothers, always communicating back and forth to achieve our goal of being in position for the flush. Teamwork is great fun when you know the game, and we knew it.

No stranger to playful needling, Tommy loved to heckle me about this column. ”Read your column last night,” he’d say. ”Not bad for a guy who couldn’t pass high school English.” I used to get a kick out of that line. Tommy would never let me forget my senior year, when I dropped Spanish, flunked old witch Alice Spindler’s English class on a bogus plagiarism charge and was ruled ineligible to play baseball. It gets worse. We had to forfeit a game or two I had played in, a mortal sin in Tommy’s eyes. ”That was my fault,” he told me at the time, and he never held it against me, just teased me about it over the years.

For me, Tommy’s passing leaves an abyss. The longer you live the more you understand how valuable and few true friends are. Although his enthusiasm for the hunt had waned the last couple of years, he still wanted to know what you were doing, what you were seeing. ”I don’t know what it is, Bags,” he’d say almost apologetically, ”but I’m losing my drive. I used to live for it but I just don’t care about hunting like I used to.”

But he cared enough to call and talk and go over scenarios, always the teacher, the coach. And no one knew more about deer and deer hunting than Tommy and Tunnel and Hezekiah and his other Buckland boys. A great motivator, Tommy remained positive, always encouraging that tomorrow was another day.

I knew Tommy wasn’t going to live forever, and so did he. He told me many times he was living on borrowed time, had been brought back to life after a heart attack two decades ago. Then the bypass bought him quality time, nearly 20 years of blissful existence before passing last week in Maine at 69.

No sir, Tommy never got cheated. But all things must pass, including Tommy. And so it was that on the morning of Aug. 29 while helping a friend cut down a tree and remove the brush near his summer camp, Tommy reached the end; told his friend he felt dizzy and was gone before he hit the ground. Massive heart attack. We should all be so fortunate. Then he even got to ride home with boyhood pal Jack Turner, who passed away hours after Tommy, also in Maine. Could that really have been a coincidence?

Tommy’s dear wife and high school sweetie, Patty, seemed remarkably composed later that dreadful day when I called soon after the news had reached me. I told her I was heartsick. She told me that she and Tommy had talked about the end recently, that he’d told her he wanted to go quickly, in the woods or in Maine, that he didn’t want nurses looking after him. Denny Rancourt, his grieving high school buddy, said the next day he was glad both wishes had been granted.

So now Tommy lies peacefully at Arms Cemetery, resting in the morning shadow of the Mohawk Trail ridges he knew so well. And Little Texas Tommy, that chip off the old block, is waiting in the wings to carry on his grandfather’s legacy — soft, devilish grin and all.

It’s a steep challenge, the kind his grandfather lived for.

A large, plump crescent moon slumped lazily on end just above the Shelburne hills, leaning slightly northward like a giant overripe cantaloupe wedge in the hot, hazy western sky as I drove home from work late Tuesday night. I’m not sure whether its wry grin, mellow orange hue or both got my nostalgic juices flowing, but something stimulated thought about a phone call I had taken a day or two earlier, then immediately transported me back to an untethered youth in that village first called Bloody Brook, then South Deerfield, then, in the Polish-spiced vernacular, Sowdeeeerfeel — the Onion Town, poor sister of The (haughty) Street.

Isn’t it odd how a force of nature like that sultry summer moon can in an instant carry you back a generation and spin your imaginative gears like the chime wheel on a noontime tall clock?

It wasn’t the reported ”mountain goats” that sent me off reminiscing. No, not at all. That was just the updraft that lifted me high above my native town to the North Sugarloaf ridge where they have been seen of late, poking in and out of the ridgeline vegetation above the rusty sandstone cliffs, presumably feeding. A longtime friend and former lightning-rod town official was my source. He said he was sick of the big-cat yarns and had one stitched of a similar thread to share.

It seems he’s been using backyard binoculars to observe the pair of white wayward goats patrolling the North Sugarloaf spine since Memorial Day, but has been reluctant to talk about it for fear of the suspicions that could spread like wildfire in a small town like his. When he first noticed them more than a month ago, he picked up visual white movement that immediately piqued his interest. After all, he’d lived in town all his life and never seen anything like it: white quadrupeds throughout the day between the cliffs and the shelf cave we often visited as prepubescents many years ago, more than we like to admit. Back then we had it good, free rein of a magical hardwood ridge that has apparently become quite public in recent years, bikers and hikers galore working the trails that begin off Hillside Road.

I was thinking back to those days of boyhood bliss and found it sad that my youthful Huckleberry Finn haunts will never be the same. They weren’t there for my boys, and they won’t be for my precious grandson, Jordan, with his inquisitive grey-blue eyes, joyful gait, curiosity oozing from his pores. Now that special place has been discovered by adults, who bring with them the law-and-order crowd bent on eliminating ”mischief.” Today, such authority figures would surely pursue free-roaming boys of Mark Twain fabric to teach them young that there are rules to be followed, and enforced. Possession of things like matches, cigarettes and fireworks, hunting or jack knives, girlie mags and BB guns are today taboo, certainly punishable by, at the very least, stifling probationary scrutiny aimed toward the path to conformity.

Such enforcers were of a different ilk in my day, when they were the kid next door’s dad, probably veterans of either the European or Pacific theaters, definitely clear-headed on the difference between kid’s stuff and crime. Back then you could carry a pocket knife that wasn’t a deadly weapon, carve initials into a tree that weren’t interpreted as criminal ”tagging,” and step out of a storm and into an abandoned shed or barn without being charged for trespassing. You could even build a spacious fort in a dense white-pine grove without facing charges for destruction of personal property. Yes indeed, times have changed, and not necessarily for the better. But let’s not digress. It’s goats we’re talking about, isn’t it; white goats on the North Sugarloaf ridge? Oh yeah, now it’s coming back to me.

Whew!

It only took one phone call to a dear old friend to confirm the Sugarloaf goats’ presence. Praise the wonders of cell phones when you know the source you’re hunting is at work, probably somewhere deep in the Whately Glen reservation. He’s a part-time police officer, has been for many years, and I knew he’d have information. Fact was he hadn’t heard a word about goats this year, but did remember reports from last summer, so they’ve been around for a while. He had no idea where they came from. Maybe wild by now. Possibly escaped from the experimental UMass farm on River Road. Maybe from the private citizen who keeps penned goats off Hillside Road. Unlikely that either party would just set them loose to roam free, though. Could they survive the winter? He didn’t think so, but he didn’t rule it out.

Maybe someone who reads this will come forward and explain what’s happening on North Sugarloaf. Maybe the goats follow hikers and bikers around like pets. Maybe they run away. Who knows? Someone must.

Then again, maybe it’s the simple case of an owner who eats goat meat and prefers the free-range variety, kind of like Whole Foods, or the olden days when pigs were allowed to roam free in the woods around the Boston Township forts. There was enough wild food available then and now. If so, the beasts are probably happy to be free from barbed-wire containment on a beautiful ridge to roam, many nuts and berries, beautiful vista. I know. I enjoyed my boyhood freedom there. So did my pals. No supervision, no high-and-tight rules and regs. Just a band of free-range kids in the Mark Twain mold who grew up with the devil in their eyes, exuding personality, independence and, later, a healthy distrust of government — all undesirable qualities in today’s cookie-cutter America of decaying schools, expansive malls, standardized tests, and an alarming number of new spit-shined prisons.

A better way?

Uh-ah!

Not in my mind.

Another downtown South Deerfield character became a memory overnight Friday when affable barber Gerald “Jerry” Fortier passed at home in his sleep.

Many a yarn was spun in that place of business, not to mention the practical jokes and fibs that kept the daily banter lively, Fortier’s devilish, crooked grin perpetual for his loyal customers. They say the lines at his wake were of legendary status, which came as no surprise here. Jerry Fortier was a downtown institution, right up there with Billy Rotkiewicz, who filled many of the same townspeople’s coffee cups and prescriptions regularly.

“Whether it was staying late on Friday to shave lightning bolts on your head for the Super Bowl or opening early to clean you up for your wedding, Jerry was always there,” wrote Kevin Wesoloski, from the Mill River District of Deerfield, who aptly called Fortier “a South Deerfield legend.”

Wesoloski continued:

“Jerry’s shop was the one place you could go to catch up on the local gossip, politics and sports info. He certainly loved his Frontier teams. What I’ll miss most is Jerry always knew who was having success in the deer and turkey woods. You could always count on him to find out who was filling their tags, and usually son Mark was right on top of the list.

“It’s comforting to know he passed peacefully and never had to retire. Fortier’s Barber Shop — it’s those special places and unique personalities that make small-town living what it is.”

A Conway native, Fortier recently celebrated his family’s 70^th year owning a South Deerfield barber shop. The first one stood closer to the town common, where the current Cumberland Farms stands. Then he moved to his last address a short piece up the street, next door to the Hot’l Warren, where I can remember him working with his father and brother. In those days there were three barber shops downtown, Jerry’s, Charlie’s and Vic’s, each with its own spin on world and local affairs. If you went to one and it was crowded, you tried the others, stopping where you could get the quickest cut. “Once around the block,” was the standard request in the chair.

Those were the days of Professional and Wells’ pharmacies, Boron’s, Paciorek’s and Walt’s New England markets, Chick’s Luncheonette, Al’s Bar & Grill, the Bloody Brook, Hosley Brothers’ Garage, Gordon E. Ainsworth & Associates, Redmen’s Hall, and Ostrowski’s Bakery, with the good, hard-crusted Polish rye you had trouble cutting through with your teeth.

They’re all gone today, and so is the town’s last barber shop. For those who have walked through Fortier’s doors monthly for decades, a haircut will never be the same.