Texan gets FT every week for 30 years

Friday, July 31, 1998

Surviving wacky hair trends, barber shop celebrates 50 years

By NORA GARZA / The Monitor

PHARR, Texas -- Carlos Vargas walked out of Serda's Barber Shop with a fresh flat top.

"No one else puts up with my type of haircut," said Vargas, 36, as he ran a hand through his thick, shiny black hair on a recent Saturday.

Vargas has been going to the small white frame building in Pharr each week for the past 30 years. He likes his hair cropped short on top and shaved at the sides.

He is in good hands at Serda's. Its founder, Gabriel Serda, was known as the "Flat Top King" in the late '40s. He learned the technique by trimming a friend's crew cut. Pleased with the results, his friend gave up his weekly trips to Brownsville and let Serda groom his head.

With his quiet nature and easy smile, Serda, 78, has been winning over customers for nearly five decades.

His 14-by-22-foot shop on 132 E. Bell has changed little since it was built in 1948 on a foundation of old-fashioned virtues of family, mutual respect and hard work. Since then, the business and the business owner have become beloved Valley institutions.

On Sunday, family and friends will honor Serda and his wife, Coleta, with a reception celebrating the shop's 50th anniversary. Among invited dignitaries invited to pay tribute to the Serdas are U.S. Rep. Rubn Hinojosa, state Sen. Eddie Lucio and Judge Ruben Ramos.

During the festivities, 11-month-old Brendan Michael Palacios will get his first haircut, becoming a fifth-generation Serda's customer. Brendan's grandfather, Oscar Palacios, lived in the neighborhood. Now a San Juan attorney, Palacios still comes to the shop for a $6 haircut.

Palacios used to pick cotton with Serda's children.

"I always felt comfortable with them," Palacios said. "You have to understand, we're old families here. My mother was born in the house she lives in now. I was, too."

Gabriel Serda, 78, knows the neighborhood and its people well. He was born four blocks from the site of his future barber shop. Serda and a friend, Joaquin Barrera, son of a barber, used each other to practice cutting hair. At 16, Serda got good enough with his father's old hand clippers to set up shop under an orange tree and charge 5 cents a head during the Depression.

The enterprise planted the seed that perhaps he could do something other than seasonal migrant work for a living.

Later, Serda joined the Civilian Conservation Camp and during World War II was drafted into the Army. In 1942, he was captured by the Germans in North Africa and spent 26 months in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. He was selected to be one of the barbers for the camp.

After the war, he attended barber school under the G.I. Bill and got his barbering license. He and Coleta married in 1946 and settled in San Antonio. They moved to Pharr two years later, building the barber shop across the street from their first home.

In the beginning, Coleta Serda helped with the business by washing the towels. She stayed home to raise their children -- Angel of McAllen, Javier of Pharr, Gabriel Jr. of San Antonio, Esperanza Garcia of Pharr and Patricia Garcia of McAllen.

"It seems to me if you work, you have more problems," Coleta Serda said. "You don't know where your kids are."

The Serda children often could be found at the barber shop, usually working. The family laughs at the story of Gabriel Serda chasing his sons through Bell Street waving a strop, or leather band for sharpening razors. But they got away with "no mas una nalgada (a spanking)," Javier Serda said.

Javier and Gabriel Jr. eventually became barbers. While Javier, 50, has been in the family business for 30 years, Gabriel Jr. left for a teaching career.

Wearing a starched blue smock, Gabriel Serda is particularly proud of his immaculate shop, where bright orange and lime painted cabinets hold supplies. The shop is decorated with antiques. On the walls are pictures of customers, and a map of the United States dotted with colorful push pins to mark the home towns of his customers.

The shop is homey, usually filled with a steady stream of customers and genial conservation, and very often, live music. When the Winter Texans are in town, the shop becomes a mini recreation center. Javier Serda keeps a guitar handy for jam sessions to accompany a visiting accordionist or fiddle player.

The shop survived the '60s hippie era and the '80s high-styling trend. Isreal Rebollar, 41, was one of the long-haired teens who took the roundabout route to school to avoid Serda's admonitions. "One of these days," Serda would tell him, "I'll grab you guys."

"We wore our hair long," Rebollar said recently, as he waited his turn at the shop. With the exception of his hippie days, he has been coming to Serda's since he was a boy.

Serda's specializes in the kind of services older men prefer. They shave around the ears and the back of the neck, and give facial massages. Gabriel Serda also makes house calls to disabled customers.

Angel Serda marvels that his father became a successful businessman, despite discrimination directed toward Mexican-Americans by both Anglos and wealthy Mexican-Americans. With only a sixth-grade education, Serda built his own business and owns property.

Angel Serda called his parents his idols.

"They've instilled the work ethic, and very strong and sound moral values," Angel Serda said. "They're the wind beneath our wings, they really are."

They set the example for family togetherness, taking care of the elderly, the importance of education and living within their means, Angel Serda said.

"God has given me so much, more than I deserve," Coleta Serda said. "My children are always there when I need them. They spoil us a little more than I deserve."

The Serdas met in the San Antonio zoo, by the monkey exhibit.

"It's been a nice marriage," Coleta Serda said. "It's been a long time."

Garbriel Serda has cut his work week to three days, though he works full time when his son is on vacation. But he still shows up each Sunday to clean the shop. He cannot even begin to estimate how many customers have filed through his door.

"Whew, I'd go crazy if I tried to count heads," he said.

But he knows for certain that becoming a barber was divine destiny.

"That's what God wanted me to do," Serda said. "To be good, you have to like what you're doing. I like to cut hair and talk to people."

It was in the Army that he learned how to talk to others, for the first time seeing that people of different races and ethnic backgrounds were treated with equal respect.

He took with him the lesson that "I'm the only one keeping myself down."

He developed tolerance for his customers, who represent all walks of life, from professionals and blue collar workers to field hands and clergymen. They come from all corners of the United States, as well as other parts of the globe.

"I hear different ways people think," Gabriel Serda said. "I'm going to let people live the way they want. I respect the opinion of every individual.

"If you want to live a good life," he said, "mind your own business."

That he has lasted this long in the business impresses even Gabriel Serda.

"When I worked in San Antonio, the barber told me he had worked there for 30 years. I thought that was too long," he said.

His longevity may be explained by his philosophy on how to treat customers.

"You have to be nice to them," Gabriel Serda said. "They're the ones who put the bread and butter on the table. Every man who sits in this chair is my boss."

Exercise and staying away from food that disagrees with him keeps him healthy, he said. He gets up at 5:30 every morning and walks one to one and half miles, and does push-ups.

"Thanks to God I lived this long," Gabriel Serda said. "The people have treated me right. I have no complaints."

He prefers working to traditional retirement hobbies like golfing and fishing.

"I'm not ready to retire," he said. "In the first place, I'm not sick. You have to keep moving or you go down. But, 78, that's getting pretty close to old-timer."

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The public is invited to attend the event, set for 4-8 p.m. A special ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m., including a special presentation by the Pharr Chamber of Commerce.

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Distributed by The Associated Press