By linda denicola
Staff Writer
JERRY WOLKOWITZ Henry Jackson, 1, keeps up a family tradition as he gets his first haircut from John Ialeggio at the Style Barber Shop, Freehold Township, on Sept. 6.
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — A first haircut is a big event for a family and can be a traumatic experience for a young child, but not for Henry Jackson. The 1-year-old’s first cut was painless, just a snip here and a trim there. He hardly noticed the soft curls falling to the floor while he and his mother played with a toy.
Henry’s family members, on the other hand, were focused on every nuance of the haircut. There were at least three people taking pictures during the process, which lasted no more than five minutes. Henry’s parents left with as much of his hair as they could collect. The barber had given Henry’s mother an envelope with snippets of Henry’s gold-red hair, but that was not enough for the father. He gathered up the rest for the trip back to Denver, where he said he had an idea for something using the hair.
Counting Henry and his parents, Stacy and David Jackson, there were four generations of his family on hand, most of them cooing over the beautiful baby. Stacy and David could have gotten Henry’s hair cut in Denver, but tradition is important to them. And it is a tradition in Stacy’s family to get a child’s first haircut at the Style Barber Shop in the South Freehold Shopping Center, Route 9.
Although Stacy admitted that Henry’s haircut was not the only reason for the visit to New Jersey, it was a good reason, especially since she got her first haircut there more than 30 years ago.
"It seemed like a very endearing thing to do," she said.
A number of other family members agreed. They value tradition, too. Henry’s paternal great-grandfather George Belkin, 90, who lives in Tamarac, Fla., was there, as were his grandparents, Larry and Shelly Belkin, of Freehold Township, and his aunt, Elyse Belkin, of Bound Brook, who is married to Stacy’s brother, Paul, who couldn’t be there because he had to work.
Henry’s dark-haired mother played with him to distract him while barber John Ialeggio, 71, cut Henry’s silky baby hair, For the most part, Henry ignored the scissors snipping away at his hair until he became restless and started to squirm. Then his mother held him on her lap so the barber could trim the back.
Shelly Belkin said she has been coming to the barber shop for as long as it has been in business which, according to Ialeggio, has been 33 years. He is semi-retired now and his daughter, Lori DeFalco, owns the shop. Ialeggio said he works two days a week, Friday and Saturday.
The barber from Naples, Italy, moved to Freehold Township from Elizabeth 33 years ago. He and his wife, Antonietta, raised three children while the shop grew from three barbers to 13 or 14 now.
The business, with 17 chairs, is all purpose, but the focus is on haircuts for men.
"There are not too many shops left that focus on cutting men’s hair. What we give them is good, short haircuts," Ialeggio said.
The same goes for children’s cuts, but over the years he has fine-tuned his approach to making young children comfortable.
"You don’t try to hold them down, and you don’t tie anything around their necks. A few weeks ago, a woman came in to get a haircut for her son. Her beautician had cut the child’s hair and messed it up. You understand, I thought the mother cut it. I was surprised that it was cut by a professional," he said, adding, "I gave him a good haircut."
Although Ialeggio is semi-retired, he still keeps busy doing the things he has always enjoyed.
He designed the shop and built most of the display cases. He gardens and goes to the gym three days a week. In addition, he helps his daughters with landscaping work around their houses.
When he had finished cutting Henry’s hair, he presented the child’s parents with a First Haircut Certificate and told them to frame it and hang it in Henry’s room. That, too, seemed to be a very endearing thing to do.