Moving in 1976 ( adapted translation) by Som

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Moving in 1976 adapted translation
In 1976, we were moving to a new town. It was a Friday morning. While we were still in the car, my mother told me she wanted us to find a shop selling school uniforms in the new town on Saturday, so that I could start school on Monday wearing one. I said, "Okay, maybe we'll find the shop." "And I also want you to get a haircut," she added. I didn't like it when the conversation turned to my hair or the idea of getting it cut. My hair wasn't particularly longsome of my classmates had hair reaching their shouldersbut I didn't go to barbers who used electric clippers close to the scalp, either. My hair covered my ears and extended past my shirt collar, and my bangs hung over my eyes.
Once we had finished moving in, my mother said, "Alex, we're going to find a grocery store, and then I'll make dinner."
As we stepped out of the house, we ran into a man with his two sons. My mother stopped them and said, "Excuse me, we're new herewe just moved in. Could you tell us where the nearest grocery store is?" The man explained where the store was, and then my mother asked about a shop selling school uniforms so that her son, Alex, could start school on Monday in the proper uniform. The man asked whether I would be attending a state school or a private one. I replied that it was a state school. When asked how old I was, I said I was fourteen. The man replied that his older son, Mike, was also 14, so I would be in the same class as him. His younger son, Rey, was 10. The man suggested that Mike could come over in the morning and go with us to the school uniform shop and to Matthews' barbershop. We agreed that Mike would arrive at our place at 9 a.m.
The boys and I shook hands and introduced ourselves. I noticed they were likely coming from the barbershop, as their hair was short.
That evening at home, I tried to convince my parents not to make me go to the barbershop Mike and Rey used. I remembered how we used to tease boys at my old school when they came back from the barber. My parents said that in this new town, it probably wasn't an issue for boys to have short hair.
The next morning, Mike was already at our door at 840, ready to go to the shop and the barbershop with us.
We walked into a small, old barbershopit was only about 15 square meters in size. It was crowded, so Mike suggested we go to the school uniform shop first. That was an old shop, too. The shopkeeper had an assistant. They told me to take off my clothes I felt embarrassed standing in front of the boys in just my underwear. The assistant also had fairly short hair and sized me up with a look of skepticism. Mike said to the assistant, "Filip, this is our new classmate Alex he'll be in our class. After we leave your shop, we're going to Matthews' barbershop." Filip smiled at that and shook my hand. Then he took a tape measure and measured my body, following the shopkeeper's instructions. I later learned that the shopkeeper was Filip's grandfather. Filip wants to train as a tailor and take over the shop from his grandfather.
When I saw the briefs, I thought they were girls' panties. At my school, we wore standard boxer-style shorts. At this school, the regulations required white briefs, a white undershirt, and athletic shorts. We also bought grey shirts, shorts, long grey knee-high socks, a grey vest, a grey jacket, a grey tie, and black shoes. There was a lot of clothing, so we agreed to pick up the rest of the uniform on our way home from school on Monday.
On the way home, we stopped by Matthews' barbershop again. Old men were sitting on all five waiting chairs. Two boys were standing in the corner, also waiting for a haircut. Mother said she still had a lot of work to do. I thought she might decide against getting my hair cut. But then Mike suggested she simply tell the barber how to cut Alex's hair so she wouldn't have to wait. I managed to tell Mother to ask the barber for just a light trim.
Mother did so she and the barber exchanged a few words, then he pointed at me, smiled, and said goodbye to Mother. She gave me the money to pay for the haircut. Mike told me to thank Mr. Matthews for the cut once it was finished, because if I forgot, he would be angry with me for a long time.
It wasn't just the barbershop that was very old the barber was, too. The barber was a tall, slender man in a white coat. He handled the electric clippers skillfully.
Both boys left the barbershop with hairstyles very similar to Mike's. When I was called to the barber's chair, the barber asked how long it had been since my last haircut I thought for a moment and replied, "About two months, sir." "Your hair must grow fast, then," the barber said with a smile.
After draping me in a white cape and fastening it tightly around my neck, he combed through my hair. I watched as he picked up a heavy pair of electric clippers and applied a drop of oil to the blades. I had never had a haircut with electric clippers before, and panic seized me. Mr. Matthews told me to tilt my head forward as far as possible. I could feel the metal blades against my neck. When he switched the clippers on, the loud noise was deafening, though the vibration felt like a massage. I watched in horror as large clumps of cut hair fell onto the cape. He ran the clippers over the back of my neck a few times before moving to the left side of my head, and then the right. In the mirror, I could see my ears, now exposed. He turned off the clippers I had felt like I was in an electric chair. The barber took a comb from his smock pocket to lift the hair and trimmed sections with standard scissors. By the time he finished cutting the hair on the crown of my head, it no longer fell over my eyes. He continued to trim and style the hair on top. My shortest hairabout two centimeters longwas at the crown of my head, while the longest was above my forehead, around four centimeters. He cut my bangs straight across, about three centimeters above my eyebrows. As he cut, I increasingly suspected that my hairstyle would look just like the one Mike and his brother had.
The barber picked up his electric clippers and swapped the blade for a much finer one than the one he'd used to cut off the bulk of my hair. He tilted my head to the right and shaved around my ear. He placed the clippers against my temple and ran them in a straight line right over my ear. After making some adjustments on the left side, he did the same on the right. He told me to tilt my head forward again and trimmed the remaining short hair from my neck up to the nape.
Before releasing me from the cape, he applied white foam to the sides and the nape of my neck, then shaved those areas. He wiped away the leftover foam and applied a sharp-smelling disinfectant lotion to the shaved skin. He put some greasy cream in my hair and combed the remaining short strands. He brushed the cut hair off me and removed the white cape. I hopped down from the barber's chair almost all my hair was lying on the floor. I quickly said, "Thanks for the haircut, Mr. Matthews." I paid for the cut, and Mike and I left the barbershop.
Mike noticed me feeling the back of my neck for my hair. He turned his back to me and showed me the nape of his own neck. "You've got it exactly the same way I do," he said with a laugh. "After all, half the back of your head is shaved and stark white," I noted in amazement. "Yeah, you too. That's Mr. Matthews' standard cut. But some guys have even shorter hair when they leave his place."
My dad praised my new haircut, and I'm afraid he'll want me to keep it that way. However, I'm planning to find a modern barbershop in townthe kind where I used to get quick trims back in my old city.
On Monday, I was ready for school, looking exactly the way my parents wanted. My class was all boysthirty-nine of us in total. Besides myself, Mike, and Filip, only seven other boys had short haircuts. The remaining twenty-nine sported modern, long hairstyles that covered their ears, shirt collars, and large parts of their faces some even had hair reaching their shoulders.
My goal for the future is to switch from the short-haired group to the long-haired group.
I need to find out from the long-haired guys which barbershop is good and modern, and where to find it. I'm confident my parents won't have any problem with me going back to my previous modern hairstyle.

Thanks in advance for the feedback and comments.

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