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Clarks Summit Barber Retiring After 62 Years

CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. — A barber in Lackawanna County took his last appointments on Saturday. He decided that after six decades cutting hair in Clarks Summit...

CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. -- A barber in Lackawanna County took his last appointments on Saturday. He decided that after six decades cutting hair in Clarks Summit, it was time to hang up the clippers.

A rare accomplishment, Ralph Marasco estimates he's done three haircuts an hour over the course of 62 years at Ralph's Hairstyling & Barbering.

Marasco was born in 1928. He will be 90 in September.

"I'm beginning to feel the effects of old age, and it's getting a little harder to stand here and work, but I've always liked my work. I've never backed away from it," Marasco said.

Marasco first learned to cut hair in the military. He opened his Clarks Summit-based barber shop in 1956.

Since then, styles have come and gone.

"When I first started, crew cut was a big thing, and then The Beatles came to town and then hair got long," he laughed.

But Ralph's has been Clarks Summit's constant, and his window to the world.

"I met people from all over the world and just talking to them and learning about their country, about their customs, and all that, I found it very interesting."

On the same day he opened up 62 years ago, Marasco will put away his clippers and close up for the last time.

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