Beauty Salon

Theodore A. "Erby" Oponski Sr., 73, formerly of Fairmount, a retired housing inspector, died of brain cancer Monday, Jan. 31, at Leesburg Health and Rehab Center in Leesburg, Fla. For 20 years Mr. Oponski was an inspector for Philadelphia Housing Development Corp., which develops new affordable housing and rehabilitates existing homes. He retired in 1999. Mr. Oponski grew up in Fairmount and attended Southeast Catholic High School, now SS. John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School.

Kaibutsu's latest intriguing show, conceived and directed by Ryder Thompson, is a theatrical interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone. It takes place in a beauty salon (the title, An-'tis-a-lon, is a play on words as well as on Greek names) and the audience follows the action from room to room, as Antigone and her sister Ismene finally have it out. In the ancient play (and you need to be familiar with the famous text before you go) Ismene (Macah Coates) is the shallow sister while Antigone (Chanelle Benz)

The Haverford Township Zoning Hearing Board voted 3-0 to approve the use of a building as a beauty salon Thursday night, but only with conditions designed to protect the residential neighborhood. Havertown resident Patricia J. Orose had applied to the board for a zoning change that would allow the beauty salon to operate from a home on North Eagle Road. Orose had told the board that the full-service salon would cater to chemotherapy patients and others who wore wigs. Board member Lynne Cohen said she approved of the concept.

It sounded like a good idea to the House budget-cutters: Slash $375,000 intended for renovating the House beauty salon. It wasn't. Female House members tore into the proposal as another example of what they called sexism on the Hill, pointing out in the process that taxpayers subsidize haircuts for men, but not for women. The debate this week revealed, among other things, that barbers in the House barbershop were congressional employees, paid salaries ranging from $25,300 to $40,700 a year - not counting tips - and covered by the same health and retirement benefits as regular staff.

The Warrington Township Zoning Hearing Board has approved a request by Wyn B. Shive to operate a beauty salon in her County Line Road home. At a hearing Monday night, the board voted, 2-1, to grant Shive a special exception to conduct her business in the residential neighborhood near Stump Road in Chalfont. Zoning board Chairwoman Janice DeVito voted against granting the permission. In approving the special exception for a home occupation, the board imposed several conditions on Shive, as a way of addressing concerns of nearby residents who worried that the salon would disrupt their neighborhood.

Margaret F. Woods, a retired Philadelphia businesswoman and the kind of friend who magically appeared at your door to help when you were sick, died Thursday. She was 73 and lived in St. Petersburg, Fla. A resident of Germantown until two years ago, Woods had owned and operated a beauty salon on Susquehanna Avenue near 18th Street for 37 years. It was adjacent to the barbershop owned and operated by her husband, Stanley, for nearly 40 years. After retiring, she worked as a volunteer for about six years at Germantown Hospital.

Havertown resident Patricia J. Orose asked the Haverford Township Zoning Hearing Board last Thursday for a zoning change that would allow her to run a beauty salon from a home on North Eagle Road. Orose told the board that she wanted to open a wig shop and beauty salon that would allow chemotherapy patients and others who wear wigs to be fitted correctly and in privacy and to get wigs trimmed. "None of the places you can buy a wig will trim them for you," Orose said. "My main focus is to get everything in one place.

Riddle Village, Middletown Township, Delaware County. The marketing brochures for Riddle Village, a life-care community under construction in Middletown Township, boldly proclaim, "It'll knock your socks off. " Indeed, life's little necessities will be no more than footsteps away from residents here. Whether they need a beauty salon, a bank, a library or a convenience store, they will be able to find it - without leaving Riddle Village. The Delaware County community won't open the first of its planned 235 apartment units until November, but scores of people already have been impressed enough by the plans to let their dollars do their talking for them.

Mary Lou Enoches was thrilled. The Chester County commissioners had just voted to condemn the licensed stylist's beauty salon for a new county office building, and she could not have been happier. "We have asked for this," she said. "They are not throwing me out. " Taking title to the salon at the corner of Market and Darlington Streets breaks a logjam that has stalled the county's plans for more than a year. "By entering into the condemnation, we can move forward with our plans and get this process moving again," Commissioners Chairwoman Karen Martynick said Monday.

There are more things to good grooming than the casual observer would suspect, but one place that knows more than the next beauty salon is the place that serves something other than the regular beautiful patron. A place such as the Pennsylvania School of Dog Grooming, 7757 Frankford Ave., which is marking its 20th anniversary this year.

Some call it a jewel on Germantown Avenue. Others see the new apartment and retail complex on a struggling multi-block strip of Nicetown as another sign of the nascent revitalization of the neighborhood. "I believe this building is going to bring more life, more energy, and more people taking pride in the neighboring blocks," longtime resident Curtis McAllister said of the Nicetown Court complex in the 4300 block of Germantown Avenue. The 60,000-square-foot building, which features 37 apartment units, a community medical office, and a beauty salon and spa, opened in December after a year of construction.

I was examining our old piano the other day, a 1924 Sohmer that we bought when my father-in-law died and we wanted something lasting to remember him by. Through its serial number, we tracked its provenance to the piano department of Strawbridge & Clothier at 801 Market St. Why shouldn't Strawbridge's sell baby grands? It had everything else: an employee chorus and radio station. Uniformed doormen and elevator ladies. Cash boys to run between the counters and registers, which is how the venerable emporium came to hire the 13-year-old W.C. Fields.

WOMEN WHO WENT to Daisy Brewer's beauty salon got more than treatment for their hair. They also got a boost for their souls. "The added benefit to each person coming to her shop was the spiritual atmosphere that prevailed," said her daughter, Sharlyn McMillan. "Daisy listened to everyone, counseled and prayed with them, even taking time to anoint them with oil if allowed to do so. "Anyone who came through her door would receive a blessing. " Daisy Willie Lee Brewer, who ran her beauty salon at her home on Irving Street in West Philadelphia for about 40 years, a devoted churchwoman, a world traveler and dedicated mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, died Nov. 4. She was 86. Daisy was well-known not only for her spiritual endeavors, but also for her style: She was always fashionably turned out, with hats that bordered on the spectacular.

IT'S 9:30 P.M. on a recent Wednesday, and from a studio in Old City, the strains of the David Rose Orchestra's iconic instrumental, "The Stripper," begin pinging their way through cyberspace. A male announcer, approximating the cadences and inflections of an old-time burlesque emcee, begins his spiel: "Ladies and gents, next up is a hot little southern Jew. She's sexy! She's funny! She's naked - HEH! She's meshuga. She's Lois Burak, and this is her story!" For the next two hours, Burak and several guests riff on life, love and sex, especially sex, as "The Lolo Show" beams over voltaradio.com.

Police are looking for the determined burglars who cut their way through a roof, two walls and a metal cage to steal $150,000 worth of gold and diamond jewelry from a South Philadelphia store. The theft at GBA Jewelry in the Hoa Binh Shopping Plaza on the 1600 block of Washington Avenue was discovered 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, police said. To get to the loot, the thieves cut their way through the roof into a beauty salon and then breached a wall into a neighboring restaurant and a second wall between the eatery and jewelry store, police said.

In a case that could have ramifications for school districts and towns throughout Pennsylvania and beyond, a judge has rejected arguments by a Delaware County retirement complex that it should be exempt from property taxes. Without comment, Delaware County Court Judge George Pagano last Thursday ruled against a petition in which Dunwoody Village contended it was a "purely public charity" providing community services and easing the health-care burden for government. Dunwoody, a "continuing care retirement community" (CCRC)

Theodore A. "Erby" Oponski Sr., 73, formerly of Fairmount, a retired housing inspector, died of brain cancer Monday, Jan. 31, at Leesburg Health and Rehab Center in Leesburg, Fla. For 20 years Mr. Oponski was an inspector for Philadelphia Housing Development Corp., which develops new affordable housing and rehabilitates existing homes. He retired in 1999. Mr. Oponski grew up in Fairmount and attended Southeast Catholic High School, now SS. John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School.

You would certainly expect black and white women to shop at the same stores, luxuriate in the same spas, even frequent the same makeup counters. And more than five decades after Rosa Parks held on to her bus seat, they do. But there was one beauty barrier that was never breached: hair salons. All things being equal, women's hair was not. Because no one, according to the conventional wisdom, could style a black woman's hair except another African American, salons were the only institutions more segregated than church on Sunday mornings.

KEVIN HOOKS went through a West Philadelphia neighborhood last week on what one would suppose to be a sad mission. He was distributing announcements of the death of his grandmother, Rachael J. Matthews, and the schedule of her funeral, but the errand turned out to be anything but sad. "People were impacted in a way that surprised me," he said. "It was striking to me what an impact she had on people. They made it clear they were going to miss a friend. " Rachael Matthews, a beautician and cosmetology teacher for many years and a woman who made it her mission in life to work with and help the young people in her neighborhood develop and thrive, died Sept.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a teen mom who feels like I am being taken advantage of by my newborn's grandmother. (I'll call her "Liz. ") My baby's father, "Todd," lives with her. They provide no financial support. Liz puts me on the spot constantly and makes me feel bad if I tell her she can't have the baby that day or take her to a certain place. Since day one, she has wanted to take my baby out of town. That bothers me because I don't want my daughter going out of town unless I am with her. I feel obligated to let Todd's mother see the baby all the time to avoid the drama she would cause in my life if I don't.