‘Dick the barber’ retires

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Cabinet file photo Since 1962 barber Dick MacDonald was a familiar presence on the Milford Oval. Here he is cutting hair in 2007.

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Submitted photo Dick MacDonald with a Milford Brownie Scout troop in 2006 when he gave them each Shriners pins for their sashes.

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Cabinet file photo Since 1962 barber Dick MacDonald was a familiar presence on the Milford Oval. Here he is cutting hair in 2007.

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MILFORD – On the door to the former Dick’s Barber Shop someone last week posted a big hand-written sign that says “Happy Retirement! We’ll miss U.”

U, of course, is Dick MacDonald, otherwise known as ‘Dick the barber,’ who said goodbye to his last client on Jan. 13 after a half century of cutting hair.

Not many will disagree that the town has lost much more than a barber.

As his friend, Brenda Nadeau, says, MacDonald was “the heartbeat of the Oval. Nothing gets by him.”

Over the years, this shy man with a ready smile became known not just for his haircuts, but for his innumerable kindnesses, from sending care packages to troops oversees, to buying many more Girl Scout cookies than he really wanted, to visiting friends in hospitals and nursing homes, and volunteering with his wife, Priscilla, at the Nashua Soup Kitchen.

As his old friend Marie Grella once said, “If he knows you need a dollar, he’ll give you two and never ask for them back.”

But to learn about those kindnesses you have to go around him and talk to his friends.

He’s not fond of talking about himself.

“You be careful how you write it,” Macdonald cautioned after an interview last week. “Don’t make it too smaltzy.”

The kind deeds he does talk about take the form of tough love, and they all involve young men who have been on the verge of dropping out of school.

MacDonald’s tactic was rejection – he let them know that they would be no longer welcome in his shop if they carried through on their plans.

One teenager he had known since he was a little boy was sitting in his barber chair, and “I told him it was his last haircut. There is no reason you should quit,” said MacDonald.

The young man re-thought his decision, stayed in school, and kept coming back for haircuts, MacDonald said, and “Now, we just smile and don’t mention it,”

MacDonald, who had been a platoon sergeant with the Milford National Guard unit, once gave a ride to Vermont to another young man he knew was planning to drop out of Norwich military college.

During the ride, said MacDonald, “I told him ‘This is the last time I’ll see you’.”

This man, too, stayed in school, graduated as his class valedictorian and is now a major in the U.S. Marines, said MacDonald, with evident pride.

In a way, MacDonald, who is almost 70, was passing on wisdom from his own male mentors he acquired over the years.

But one piece of advice comes from Albert Einstein. A quote that hung on his shop wall expresses a sentiment MacDonald’s life seems to exemplify: “Try not to be a man of success but a man of value.”

Can a Scotsman cut hair?

MacDonald was barely 20 when he first set up shop here, in a profession, in Milford at least, dominated by Italians.

After a stint working at the now defunct Sprague and Carleton furniture factory (the former French and Heald), he went to barber college and then set up shop in the Stickney building, on the south side of the Oval in a space that had been a barber shop for more than 100 years.

After half a century his first day is still clear.

“All the barbers in Milford and a couple from Wilton came to watch me cut hair,” he said in a video posted at www.nashuatelegraph.com. “They wanted to see if they were going to let this Scotsman join their ranks.”

Apparently his skills were good enough, and the friendly Scotsman stayed here for 50 years.

On Jan. 14 friends helped MacDonald move his furnishings and equipment into storage.

They will be auctioned off at a date to be announced.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 304, or kcleveland@cabinet.com.