Greensburg barber opts for retirement after more than 60 years in business
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Ed DiOrio knows the long and the short of hair, and a related fact that’s kept him in business for more than 60 years: “Hair grows back.”
At 85, the Greensburg man is retiring Thursday from his trade as a barber, along with the barber chair that has followed him through his long career tending to his customers’ coiffure at locations in and around the city.
DiOrio began cutting hair as a teenager, while he still was attending high school in Greensburg. He would walk to South Main Street to help at a shop run by barber Ray Garner, getting experience in return.
“I thought it was an easy buck,” DiOrio said of barbering. “It’s a good job, but you don’t make a lot of money.”
After he graduated from school in 1956, he spent four years in the Navy — sailing aboard the USS Cacapon to the western Pacific, including Japan.
His assignments onboard included — of course — trimming the hair of fellow sailors. It was a new challenge for him to snip with precision as the vessel rolled across the sea.
“There were too many waves,” he said, “but you get used to it.”
Crew cuts were a common style, which made his job clipping hair easier. “You just take it all off,” he said.
After his stint in the service, DiOrio returned to his chosen civilian trade in Greensburg. He joined forces with fellow barbers at shops at the current sites of the Joseph Thomas Flower Shop on Main Street and Penelope’s gift shop on Pennsylvania Avenue.
In the early 1970s, he struck out on his own, opening a barber shop in the West Point section of neighboring Hempfield. He’s been at his basement location, at 27 W. Pittsburgh St. in Greensburg, since 1975.
Part of a traditional tonsorial occupation that has seen competition from salons and chain styling shops, DiOrio has left a lasting impression with customers who have included attorneys, judges and others who work at the nearby Westmoreland County Courthouse.
The county commissioners Wednesday delivered a proclamation expressing thanks to DiOrio for “serving the community for so many years” while becoming “a trusted friend to many.”
“In all those years, he never took time off, he never took a vacation,” daughter Jenn Falbo said of DiOrio.
Longtime clients became more than customers.
“He knew all about their family and friends and what was going on in their lives,” the commissioners said.
Conversation, which often centers on sports, is something DiOrio has provided that is just as important as his skill with a razor and scissors.
“Some people are shy, but, once they get in the chair, they talk,” he said.
Of course, silence can be golden when it comes to small tykes getting a first haircut. DiOrio kept a drawer stocked with lollipops for those customers — many of whom have returned again and again.
“I gave a haircut to a guy when he was 2 years old, and he’s still been coming in,” he said.
DiOrio has shared with customers his interests in golfing and Frank Sinatra — favored subjects that are reflected by the decor on his shop’s walls.
“One thing about Sinatra is he could sing,” DiOrio said. “There is still nobody better.”
Though he’s treated them all the same, DiOrio can recall a few famous, or infamous, customers who stood out. They’ve ranged from the late Pirates pitcher and broadcaster Nellie King to death row inmate John Lesko.
Lesko and the late Michael Travaglia were convicted or entered guilty pleas for four murders in the region in a 1979-80 “kill for thrill” spree. Lesko, who has pursued multiple appeals in his case, was brought to DiOrio by his attorney to get his beard and hair trimmed for his initial court appearance.
DiOrio also has taken his barbering technique on the road. For many years, he was under contract to provide haircuts for residents of Westmoreland Manor.
“He’d go every Monday, which was his day off at the shop,” Falbo said.
DiOrio has seen plenty of hairstyles come and go over six decades. The key, he said: “Just go with the flow. Everything works out.”