GODSTUFF

WEE MAN SHARES A SLICE OF HISTORY

In his 1995 autobiography, Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama writes about the first time he walked into a barbershop in Hyde Park for a trim.

“The door was propped open and when I walked in, the barbershop smells of hair cream and antiseptic mingling with the sound of men’s laughter and the hum of slow fans,” Obama wrote of the hair salon he called “Smitty’s” in his memoir.

On Thursday morning, when we parked outside the Hyde Park Hair Salon near the corner of Blackstone and 52nd streets, laughter from the handful of men inside wafted through the open front door, beckoning us.

“These two gentlemen would like a haircut,” I told the bearded man who greeted us, motioning to our two visitors from Africa — Vasco, 10, an orphan from Malawi who is in Chicago for lifesaving heart surgery, and his Malawian caregiver, 32-year-old Mac.

“Have a seat,” the barber said. “We’ll be right with you.”

Vasco climbed onto a leather couch in the back of the salon and we flipped through some magazines while we waited.

“Who’s this?” I asked the boy we’ve come to call “Wee Man,” pointing to a magazine with first lady Michelle Obama on the cover.

“Meessayz Obama,” he said, grinning.

Flipping through the pages, we came to a photo spread of the first family. Wee Man, as is his habit, took great delight in pointing to each picture of the president and shouting, “Obama!”

My husband and I brought our houseguests to the venerable Hyde Park barbershop for two reasons. First, after a month away from home, both Wee Man and Mac’s hair needed a trim. And second, we wanted to show our Malawian friends the place where President Obama gets his hair cut (or at least did for nearly 15 years, before moving to Washington, D.C.).

The first thing you spot when you walk into the Hyde Park Hair Salon is Obama’s black barber chair, encased in plexiglass, affixed with plaques quoting passages about the salon from Dreams from My Father. The walls are adorned with photographs of some of the barbershop’s other famous clientele, including Muhammad Ali and the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.

In his memoir, Obama recalls a conversation he had in the barbershop about Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor.

“The night Harold won, let me tell you, people just ran the streets,” Obama quotes his barber as saying. “It was like the day Joe Louis knocked out Schmeling. Same feeling. People weren’t just proud of Harold. They were proud of themselves. . . . When I woke up the next morning, it seemed like the most beautiful day of my life.”

This reminds me of the stories we’ve told Wee Man about Election night 2008.

We felt proud and grateful. For and of Obama and the progress our nation has made toward outliving the ghosts of racism and inequality.

Obama has become part of Vasco’s story. The day we met Vasco in a small mud-and-wattle hut on the outskirts of Blantyre, Malawi, in October 2007, we had spent several hours with a group of about 40 other street children who were fascinated by Obama — the son of an African man who might one day be president.

The street kids couldn’t believe such a thing was possible. But it was.

That kind of a story — Obama’s story — is a tale of faith and hope that enlivens our Wee Man, who probably shouldn’t still be alive, never mind having his hair trimmed at the president’s barbershop in Chicago.

Vasco was born with a large ventricular septal defect — a hole in his heart — and every day that he’s still here is a gift. He has scant few memories of his father, who died from AIDS several years ago, not long after the virus also claimed the life of Vasco’s mother.

I don’t know what dreams Wee Man may have from his father. So we’re helping him make some memories and, perhaps, dreams of his own.

As I watched Marcus, one of the salon’s barbers, artfully wield the clippers to give Wee Man his “Obama Cut,” I was struck by how tiny he looked under the black vinyl smock that covered him almost to his feet, which dangled about six inches north of the chrome footrest.

At 10, Wee Man is just that — four feet tall and 49 pounds, about the size of an average American kindergartner. But he is growing in so many ways.

He is almost 10 pounds heavier than when he arrived in Chicago last month, his sunken cheeks are beginning to plump, and his chicken legs have a lot more meat and muscle on them then just a few weeks ago.

Wee Man has learned many new things, like how to swing a baseball bat and the names of some of the White Sox players. Last week he caught 103 fish in less than three hours at a suburban fishing hole. He’s learning to ride a bike and each day has more English than the day before.

While we’re still waiting for his doctors at Hope Children’s Hospital (who are graciously treating him pro bono) to schedule the open-heart heart surgery — hopefully sometime next week — Wee Man is flourishing and happy.

Only God knows what the future holds for him after his heart is mended and his health restored. We’re praying for wisdom, discernment, strength and joy.

But spending a few minutes in the place where some great men have had their hair cut and beards shaved is one more piece of history, and of a dream, for this Wee Man to remember.