How The Heck

Did He Know That?

To the Editor:

I am sorry to hear that Marino Palino, “Joe the Barber,” is finally totally retiring, but it is a well-deserved retirement. In the nearly 30 years that we have lived here, I have always been amazed that this guy who lives not in Newtown, but 20 miles away in Stratford, knows many of the people on our old street and our present street. Also, he often knows more about them than I do. It seems that over the years every time I have come home from getting a haircut I have had a “How the heck did he know that?” story about Joe to tell my wife.

When we moved into our present house, we knew that at some times in the past Senator Chris Dodd and his father, Senator Tom Dodd, had stayed in the house on occasion with the previous owners, but I could never find out exactly what the story was. One day a couple of years ago I mentioned it to Joe and, of course, he told me the whole story. Then, to my amazement, he went to a little drawer on the other side of the shop and took out a note that the previous owner of our house had written to Joe at the time of her husband’s death several years before. I should have asked Joe about the Dodd connection in the first place.

We will all miss having Joe around as a unique fixture in Newtown. We will just have to find a new source of information. I hope Joe enjoys a long, relaxing retirement.

Yours truly

Howard F. Bowles, Jr

2 Old Castle Drive, Newtown                                      January 5, 2008