Friday, April 17, 1998 | 10:41 a.m.
HOTCHKISS, Colo. -- Things are moving at a steady clip in Mike's Barber Shop for a Saturday morning. There's a man in the chair, old Doc Brown on deck and me in the waiting room, petting Mike's cat.
"Looks like another beautiful day," Mike says, glancing out the big window behind him.
Mike's occupies the front of an old house on Hotchkiss' drowsy main street. This is a typical small town, quaintly aging buildings surrounded by farmland, largely undistinguished except to the people who live here (Mike) or would like to (me).
Until 10 months ago, Mike Savarro worked his scissors in a shop at Charleston and Valley View boulevards, 100 yards or so from my desk at the SUN. "I cut hair in Vegas for 32 years," he says. He's a skilled barber, but despite his proximity, the photo above is proof enough that I didn't know him while he was here.
I met him a few days ago. My wife and I were visiting family near Hotchkiss and decided to do something about our middle son's nagging coif. Mike's was handy. A small-world moment ensued.
Now I've returned to get his story. Of course, my secret mission is to glean something from his transition to Hotchkiss that might help me make my own someday.
"I got tired of the Vegas lifestyle," Mike says simply, tired of dealing with the clogged arteries of a boomtown so intent on the boom it's no longer a town. Symbolic of his frustration: his daily bike ride to work. Anywhere else, that's the mark of a citizen doing his part for clean air and lighter traffic; in Las Vegas, it's an invitation for abuse. "I've never been flipped off so many times in my life, just going to work!"
Hotchkiss -- where his wife's family lives -- is Mike's anti-Vegas: fresh air, slow traffic, good fishing. "The people accepted me real well," he says.
He hasn't gone totally native; among the many hats dangling from the ceiling are Oakland Raiders and the Green Bay Packers caps ... no Denver Broncos. That could land a feller in trouble 'round these parts, mister. "I thought about putting the Raiders hat front and center, just to piss everyone off," Mike chuckles. Colorado and Vegas vie for his walls: Near a poster of local sport fish is a mock Nevada license plate reading "Magic Mike"; caps bear the logos of the Santa Fe and Sonny's Saloon.
My wife insists I'd go nuts from boredom in a place like this, but, like Mike, I've never been a Vegas kind of guy. Half the benefits of a 24-hour town are lost on me. Like Eddie Albert, I prefer green acres (preferably with a good bookstore). "My lifestyle hasn't changed at all," Mike says. Well, he did miss one thing -- until he discovered that Little's restaurant serves crab legs.
It's time to get out of his hair. If there's a lesson here, it has something to do with western Colorado needing good barbers more than average newspapermen, and I'd rather not think about it. As I leave, Doc Brown is boasting about his prime homestead on a nearby mesa. "Don't even ask to buy any of it," he announces. "I wouldn't sell a single stone." That's OK, Doc, I couldn't settle for a single stone.
Outside, it is indeed a gorgeous day, the sky a deep, cloudless blue above the snowy West Elk and Ragged mountain ranges. In a few hours, the sky will be filled with formations of migrating cranes, laying over for a few restful weeks before heading home.
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