The Barber of Simi : History: Manuel Banaga and his shop are landmarks in a city that has grown from 5,000 residents to 100,000 in the four decades since he opened for business.

Outside is the bustle of Simi Valley’s busiest street.

Inside all is peace and quiet as Manuel Banaga snips and chats in a rhythm that has soothed customers’ nerves since Simi was a town and its valley was a ranch from ridge to ridge.

In the 1950s Banaga specialized in flattops. Today he clips gray hair off the collars of older customers and treats youngsters to the fuzzy feel of a freshly cut buzz.

Banaga, 64, does his work from a tiny clapboard shop whose history dates to the turn of the century and which is one of three remaining structures from the original Simi Colony.

Both the barber and his shop are landmarks in a city that has grown from 5,000 residents to 100,000 in the four decades since Banaga opened his doors.

The Simi Valley Barber Shop, marked only by a rotating red-white-and-blue-striped pole, was first Dora Beach’s candy shop. It became a Jehovah’s Witnesses meeting hall, a chiropractor’s office, a Mexican food restaurant and a private home before Banaga bought it in October, 1951.

Now sandwiched between Midas muffler and Frigiking air conditioning on Los Angeles Avenue, the old barbershop is surrounded by the din of a busy commercial strip.

But when customers step past the peeling paint of Banaga’s storefront, they are met by an embracing calm.

Banaga himself has the look of a Buddhist monk--lean, bald and clear eyed.

His shop is just as spare. Customers wait in two wooden chairs. An old wooden rack holds six coats. A metal ashtray is tarnished gray. A carved sign says “HAIR CUT $7.00.” The paint is fading from a large portrait of a frontier barber struggling with the cowboy in his chair.

Banaga likes the painting. His father was a cowboy on Wood Ranch when it was still owned by the McCoys. “Sometimes,” he says, “the kids will look at it and think it’s me.”

“Everything here is an antique, except the barber,” he says.

Banaga, who sets his own flexible schedule, was at work early last Tuesday morning, opening at 9 o’clock. Before long three customers slipped through his door and into a waiting seat.

Tom Ratican, 65, who is retired from the Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles, had seen Banaga’s rotating pole for years and decided to finally drop in.

James Wilkerson, 59, a sewing machine distributor in Los Angeles, delayed his morning commute for a haircut, as he has off and on since the early 1960s.

Walter Soroko, 67, a retired Simi school district carpenter, stopped by to see his old buddy.

Banaga worked quickly. The low twang of country music drifted from a radio. The talk was of the weather, traffic and high school days.

“So you went to Hollywood High?” Banaga nearly whispers to Ratican, his new customer.

Ratican: “I’m goin’ down there next week. I’m goin’ to stop in and check it out.”

“How old a man are you,” the barber says, “if you don’t mind my asking.”

Wilkerson is second in Banaga’s worn vinyl chair. He covers the track of familiar conversation.

“Boy, I bet we’re going to have some good spring flowers,” Wilkerson says. “Uh-huh,” says the barber.

“The desert is going to bloom this year,” Wilkerson says. “Uh-huh,” says the barber. “I planted a few grapevines.”

Short comments, long pause. A cadence both predictable and comfortable.

The trick, Banaga says later, is not to talk too much. “You gotta be a listener. But I break the rules sometimes.”

Wilkerson’s eyes close. “I usually fall asleep in the chair.”

Banaga was Simi Valley’s only barber when he first opened. Walt Soroko has been a regular for 15 years.

“How are ya, Manny,” he says. “Nice rain last night. I hope we get some more up north.”

“You got relatives up there, don’t ya?” Banaga says.

Soroko’s retirement is working out just fine, he says. Ray, a friend of theirs, is fine too. Banaga mentions a grandson who’ll be 17 soon.

Manny turns up an old gas heater four feet from Soroko’s shoes, then strips off a sagging blue sweater that had warded off the morning chill.

The next customer is 3-year-old Mitchell Harris, whose mother, Dory, loves his long blond curls. But Mitchell, clutching a toy duck in one hand and a Ninja Turtle in the other, doesn’t like it much.

Seeing the long hair, the barber approached the mother and son.

“Ma’am, I just do regular haircuts here. I don’t do styling,” says Banaga, who once cut both long hair and short for survival, but has now decided to simplify.

“I just want it buzzed,” the mother says.

“It breaks my heart to cut all that nice hair,” says Banaga.

“I know, but he hates it,” the mother says. “This way mommy doesn’t brush it.”

Little Mitchell scrambles into Banaga’s chair and sits quietly as the barber peels the hair away. His mother skims it from his shoulders and puts it in a plastic bag, saved for the head of a porcelain doll.

“You ought to have brought your camera,” Banaga says.

“We just did a family picture,” she says.

“That’s something we all ought to do,” says the barber. “The time just goes by.”

Time has been good to Banaga. He works “just enough to keep the cash flow.” When the mood hits him, he’ll close down and drive for coffee with one of the 15 or 20 old-time barbers still around this county.

Customers know when he’s open because his barber pole turns. “My customer, if he doesn’t see me, he’ll come another day.”

The barber lives 1 1/2 blocks from work with his wife of 44 years. Helen and Manuel Banaga have raised four sons and a daughter. And through his children, Manuel is reminded of his legacy.

Son Dennis, 40, brought a memento back from a recent high school reunion.

“He said, ‘You wouldn’t believe it, dad, they were all asking for you,’ ” Banaga said. “And you know why? All those boys came in here. And they still come back. They say, ‘My dad brought me in when I was a boy.’ ”

Manuel Banaga’s barbershop is treated with respect.

It’s been broken into twice, he says, and the total loss was a pair of clippers. A thief stole his barber’s pole a couple of years ago, but when the local newspaper wrote about the crime, the pole was abandoned in a conspicuous place so it could be returned.

“That’s why I have stayed here,” Banaga said. “It’s quiet and it’s peaceful. There’s a lot of peace of mind. It’s the people who come here that make it peaceful. They like it like that.”