Kaban ni D_BystandeR: KINSA SI CESAR JUAREZ???

Where exactly to start?  Cesar Juarez has had such a full and interesting life that one might begin telling his story during any of the 64 years he has spent on this planet.  But let's start with the present, or, precisely, one recent late afternoon, as he is standing in the place he works a few days a week, Mr. Barber of Chicago, at 200 E. Walton St..  Some background: Given its tony address, you'd be surprised that this is a charmingly old-fashioned barbershop rather than a glitzy salon. And the man who owns it is no slouch in the interesting-life department, either.  Peter Vodovoz came here from his native Russia in 1991 with $1 in his pocket. He learned English, worked in the Drake Hotel's barbershop, opened his own place, got married to a fellow Russian named Stella and lives with her and their daughter, Emily, a 12-year-old student/swimmer with Olympic aspirations, in a northwest suburban house.  He regularly cut the hair, or actually shaves the head, of the great Ernie Banks and tends to other notables from the world of sports, show business, politics and entertainment. He has known Juarez for more than 20 years, when both of them manned chairs at the bygone Drake shop.  This is what Vodovoz has to say about Juarez: "He is a wonderful person, a very sweet guy with a lot of charm. He is fine barber and he sometimes does the card tricks for customers and their children, and they are always amazed."  Juarez was an 11-year-old living in San Luis Potosi, a large city in central Mexico, when his father, Jose, gave him a deck of cards.  "I remember it well," says Juarez. "The deck came with a gold ribbon around it in a box. There was 'AA' on the cards. It was something he got flying on American Airlines.  "My father was a poker player. He would play for money, but he didn't cheat. He told me that he wanted me to learn how to handle cards to protect myself."  During a year in private school in Mexico, Juarez learned card tricks from an older student, and the next year came to Chicago to live with his parents and a brother and sister on the West Side, across the street from the now-shuttered Brach's Candy factory, where his father would work for nearly five decades.  "He would sometimes bring some of his friends from work over to our house and have me do card tricks for them," Juarez says.  He graduated from Austin High School, went to Truman College to study photography and became a successful family portrait photographer. He tended bar at such places as the Chicago Yacht Club, Hacienda del Sol, the Acapulco Lounge and at the Oak Brook Polo Club. Sometimes at these bars, and there were others, he would amuse customers with sleight of hand tricks and by eating glass. "Never the thick glasses but thinner ones," he says. "People are always in awe of tricks and magic."  His hair-cutting career goes further back than does his magic.  "When I was 8 I took my mother's scissors and started giving haircuts to all my friends," he says. "I didn't know what I was doing, so all of my friends' mothers would come to the house looking for me - "See what he did to my son's head! Where is he?!' - and I would hide in the closet until they went away."  He would eventually learn the craft at Pivot Point International  and went on to take care of heads (men's and women's) at the Marshall Field store on State Street, the Palmer House barbershop and the Drake. "That is how I met the judge," he says, referring to the legendary Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz." "He had me come to visit his office, and we would have lunch. He was a great man, and I always called him Lincoln.'"  He also has a story about TV's Larry King and about giving a haircut to a Playboy Bunny while her Bunny pal acted up lasciviously in the neighboring chair, but those stories you really have to hear in person.  

He has two daughters, now 15 and 21, and eventually opened his own shop, Cesar's Scissors, near Belmont and Austin avenues, and it for more than a decade. He also worked as a picture framer, a cook, city worker and possibly a few other professions he neglected to mention. But cards and scissors have always been his main tools.

He graduated from Austin High School, went to Truman College to study photography and became a successful family portrait photographer. He tended bar at such places as the Chicago Yacht Club, Hacienda del Sol, the Acapulco Lounge and at the Oak Brook Polo Club. Sometimes at these bars, and there were others, he would amuse customers with sleight of hand tricks and by eating glass. "Never the thick glasses but thinner ones," he says. "People are always in awe of tricks and magic."

(Bug-os ang  pasalamat sa KAHAYAG ngadto sa nagsulat niining  paambit   nga si JOHNNY LOVE. Nagtakuban siya sa pangalan, "D_BystandeR".  Natawo siya sa Sugbo apan anaa na karon manimuyo sa Illinois sa tinipong nasod sa Amerika. Ang kusog nga koneksyon sa kasayuran pinaagi sa internet kanunayng naghaling sa iyang kadasig  pagtuki sa mga nagbukalbukal nga hisgutanan dinhi sa atong nataran. Usa siya ka magsusulat nga gradwado sa kursong komersiyo padulong sa pagka accountant sa University of San Carlos kaniadtong tuig 1961.  Nahimo siyang miyembro sa usa ka hugpong sa mga batan-ong magsusulat nga gitawag ug STUDENT PRESS.  Nahimo usab siyang   Associate Editor sa basahon  USC-JPIAN sa tuig 1962-63. Magtatampo usab siya isip magsusulat sa nasudnong magasin,  "Philippines Free Press" ug sa mga nag-unang peryodiko dinhi sa dakbayan sa Sugbo sa lunhaw pa ang iyang pangedaron. Nahimo siyang mamumuo sa usa ka pribadong kompaniya sa dakbayan sa Sugbo, ESCANO LINES, sulod sa napulo ug duha (12) ka tuig  dayon niyang tapon  ngadto sa NAPOCOR  ug nahimong kawani sa kagamhanan  sulod sa bayente dos (22) ka tuig. Niadtong tunga-tungang bahin sa tuig 2000, nilalin siya ngadto sa tinipong nasod sa Amerika ug sulod sa napulo (10) ka tuig, nagtrabaho siya sa  buhatan sa kagamhanan sa nasod sama  sa  UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE (USPS).  Karon sa pangedaron nga 67,  gihuptan gihapon niya ang walay pagkutat nga kadasig ug walay busganan nga kaikag sa pagpaambit sa iyang nahuptang abilidad  ug kabatid sa panulat.  Dili niya mapugngan ang kaugalingon sa pagpaambit sa iyang mga hunahuna labi na kon molambigit kini ug hisgotanan nga makadani sa iyang mga mata. Kinutlo kining paambit gikan sa pamantalaan Sunday Tribune sa isyu Oktubre 21, 2012)