EVERETT — Paul Barber hasn’t raised his prices for a haircut in 14 years.
Barber, 64, thinks his $9 cuts are what keep his customers returning. But he also recognizes that times change, and business isn’t what it used to be.
“I used to have a pretty good crowd from the military, but now everybody’s on deployment,” Barber said.
More clientele came from students in Everett Community College’s criminal justice program — “Those guys liked to get their hair cut,” he said — but the professor he knew in that program retired, and Barber no longer has the contacts at the school he used to.
Then on May 9, his house at 2010 23rd St. burned down, and untangling the web of insurance and planning for the future has become a burden for him and Molly Chachulski, his wife of five years and friend for 30.
The fire left them still owing on a $106,000 mortgage, because they discovered after the fact that they were underinsured; they simply wouldn’t be able to buy a similar house with the money left over.
“Molly is cheerful and optimistic and I’m the doom and gloom. If I was an anchor, she’d be a sail,” Barber said.
While Barber frets about losing the home he lived in for 30 years, Chachulski plunges ahead, meeting with insurance agents and exploring how to rebuild.
Their 1,000-square-foot home, built in 1910 on a 3,000-square-foot lot, isn’t compliant with today’s zoning codes, Chachulski said. Getting a “non-conforming use” permit has been difficult because property records from more than 100 years ago are sketchy.
“There are questions about the actual size of the lot,” she said.
Their insurance company won’t release the full amount of their settlement until rebuilding starts, but it also took three and a half months to remove asbestos-laden debris. Building season was over by the time the lot was clear, she said.
“What a nightmare,” Barber said.
“It is,” she said, squeezing his knee. “Luckily you’ve got me, honey.”
Barber and Chachulski are both Michigan natives, although they didn’t meet until they both moved to Washington about 30 years ago.
Barber — Chachulski is his actual last name, but he adopted the aptonym when he started cutting hair — was originally headed to Alaska to work as a welder or machinist on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
“I stopped for gasoline and a cup of coffee, and the gasoline was bad and the coffee was good,” Barber said.
“By the time I got the gas situation straightened out I had a job, an apartment and a girlfriend and one thing led to another,” he said, with a quiet laugh.
Barber, 64, opened his first barber shop at 1819 Broadway, but in 2000, the redevelopment of that block forced him to move to his current address, 1001 Broadway, across from Everett Community College.
That move was also the last time he raised his prices, from $7.50 to $9. It costs $12 if someone shows up after 5 p.m., and $20 after 6 p.m. He doesn’t take appointments.
In both locations he’s never been out of bicycling distance from work.
Where Barber dwells on the fire and worries about the future, his wife accepts the present and pushes ahead.
The fire started while they were out and engulfed the roof areas of their house and the house next door, which was built at the same time and in the same style as theirs. That house was unoccupied and in foreclosure.
The fire burned hot and spread fast. Ultimately both houses had to be knocked down to completely extinguish the fire, Everett Fire Marshal Rick Robinson said.
Barber said a neighbor saw his cat, Mingus, escape through the window. Mingus hasn’t been seen again. They have since adopted two others, Cleo and Casey.
An investigation determined the fire started between the two houses and that there were several possible ignition sources, including extension cords running to a wooden porch and a fire pit, but the exact cause could not be determined.
On the day they first met at the Index General Store in 1981, Chachulski walked out of the store reading a science fiction novel and ran into Barber on his bicycle.
“I saw her and I rode my bike up into the doorway, and said ‘Hey, what are you reading?’ Creative, huh?” he said.
Chachulski’s take: “I saw a highly disreputable looking man in two or three wool shirts, with a beard and big glasses.”
“He said, ‘Oh, I like science fiction too, maybe I can come over and we can trade books,’ ” she said. “I think it was the greatest pickup line ever.”
They’ve been friends ever since, more or less companions, although the ensuing decades were interrupted by long periods of separation.
“Sometimes he would say something and tick me off and I wouldn’t speak to him for six weeks,” she said.
Chachulski moved back to Michigan in 1989 to help her father after his house burned down. She wound up staying 10 years until he died.
She then moved to Alaska in 2000 as a math teacher and then as an assayer in a gold mining company. She visited Barber annually, and later more often, coming down from Alaska every few weeks.
“He thought that was a perfect solution, one week on, two weeks off,” she said.
She was still living in Alaska when they got married in 2008, but after another year she decided to stop working and move back to Washington for good.
“I was working 77 hours a week two weeks in a row, with one week off, and I was 64 years old, and I was not being safe,” she said.
Now Barber and Chachulski are considering their next steps.
“We’re working on any possible way to pay off the mortgage and rebuild an inexpensive home that will last the rest of our lives,” Chachulski said.
That is assuming they can untangle the knot they’ve found themselves in. “People have said you really need a lawyer. Well, I need a free lawyer,” she said.
When not talking to insurance companies or digging up century-old property records, Chachulski spends her days with a friend who has Alzheimer’s.
They lead a quiet life, their principal pastimes being reading, bicycling, taking walks, and working an 80-foot square plot in the Red Barn Community Farm in Lowell, where they grow 20 different vegetables.
Both Barber and Chachulski love what they do, although Barber is doubtful if he’ll ever be able to retire.
“Now in our late 60s we’re starting over again,” he said. “We’re just trying to cling to each other.”
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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