Kees' photos with the keyword: sparrenlaan

For my aversion to barbers we have to go back many years. Yes, Dr. Freud, this is where it all began. The “Sparrenlaan” once had quite a few shops now turned into regular houses: there, you could buy vegetables (2x), groceries, bread (2x), meat (2x), milk, electronics, notions, and other things I can’t think of at the moment. The house above used to be a barber shop, for men on the first floor, for women on the second. Every fourth week I was sent here, with a guilder in the sweaty palm of my hand, very much aware that there were better things to do, and that the ugly duckling would only leave uglier.

There’s a strange discrepancy between the promise to create a “NEW YOU” and the building where that process has to take place... In my youth, the house harboured an electronics shop; for many years, the shop windows displayed a dusty roof antenna and not much else. Now the view on the clients’ regeneration is thankfully blocked by curtains.