Page 40 - the NOISE September 2012

STORY & PHOTOS BY ANNABEL SCLIPPA
Most people around here know him as away from his bunch of brothers and into the were tough and many people moved away. location where it became Hair By Manuel, a
Manny. Few know his last name Sanchez, and I may be one of a handful, until publica- tion of this article, who have called the owner of Gotta Have It! Mr. Manuel Jesus Sanchez.
A true Verde Valley citizen since birth, Mr. Sanchez was born in the Jerome Hospi- tal, currently the Jerome Grand Hotel, to Manuela and Ruperto Sanchez on January 1st 1950. A surprise as poignant as the effect of walking into his store today, Mr. Sanchez was what he refers to as a “Change of Life” baby. His mother and father had met almost 20 years earlier, during Prohibition, when a young Ruperto Sanchez made his way down from Jerome to buy some hooch from the lovely Miss Manuela Llanez. “My mother and father were together something like 44 or 46 years, and my mom had me when she was about 42.”
What would cause a sweet young lady to make and sell the devil’s drink? Well, her mother, of course. When the Great Depres- sion came, money ran out and everyone was hurting. As Mr. Sanchez said, “Kind of like now. So, mom and grandma were sitting around the house and grandma said ‘let’s make some hooch and sell it,’ and so they did.”
Grandma Andrea Soqui eventually made and saved up enough money to buy the old Buckaroo Bar, which is now Kactus Kate’s, and also the Purple Sage, currently Nic’s. By the by, the hootch, meaning originally ‘cheap whiskey,’ is a shortened form of Hoochinoo, a liquor made by Alaskan Indians, and Mrs. Soqui’s was good enough to drag Ruperto
arms of her daughter, Manuela.
They lived at the 1010 Catclaw address for
quite some time, successful off the hooch and savvy at evading the police. Mr. Sanchez explained, “There is a tunnel that goes un- derneath Nic’s to across the street where the empty lot is now. There was once a bar there called Tumbleweeds, where they would hide the liquor from the Federale.” Grandma’s home on Catclaw was torn down some years back and what sits now is a lot, as empty as where Tumbleweeds once rolled out the goods by the glass a few blocks away.
“One of my favorite stories from Grandma was about how at 3 every afternoon, a don- key would come to the bar. Grandma would put a bucket of beer out and it would drink it all, and then waddle home — every day. Isn’t that a hoot?” This was the bar that was the Buckaroo, that also had other names, and is now Kactus Kate’s. From looking at past records, it seems bar names and own- ers flipped hands rapidly back in those days. I’ve heard other versions of this story too, with a horse, and with a mule, but a mule is a donkey and a horse cross-bred, so it could be one of those simple details lost in transla- tion. Either way, it’s a fabulously entertaining image to envision.
When Manuel Sanchez was only the ten- der age of three months old, his mother put him to her breast to keep him warm as his father maneuvered their Model T Ford over Mingus, the only existing road over the mountain. The mine had closed down, times
Mr. Sanchez and his parents ended up in Ajo, but kept their house here, so his mom and dad could retire back home someday.
Over the years they returned for holidays, but dad didn’t make it to retirement, pass- ing away too soon. Mr. Sanchez attended ASU until transferring to Yavapai College in Prescott to be closer to his mother who was aging and now widowed. Later, in the mid-
1970s, Mr. Sanchez returned to the house on West Pima, and to Old Town.
At ASU and Yavapai he studied art, any kind of art. From interior decorating, archi- tecture, car design, fine arts, shoe design, and landscaping to industrial design, pack- aging, even down to how bottles are made; he was fascinated with an array of technical and creative skills. Then, one day when he and his friends were visiting Mill Avenue, he saw the “scene” in a “modern” beauty shop. “All the men and women were having so much fun. I looked at my friends and said,
‘I want to be a hairdresser.’ My friends didn’t believe me because I was so deeply into art, but I knew, and so I became one.”
The coursework only took a year, and in the 35 years since, Mr. Sanchez has opened shop at the property currently known as Ledbetter Law when it was Curl Up & Dye. Then, for three locations, it was Sheer Plea- sure: the Cottonwood Hotel, up the street to what housed The Little Store Uniquities, and again back down to the building of the current Chocolate Blonde Salon. It then moved across the street to the Betty’s Attic
name that stuck when it moved to its current location 12-14 years ago. At that time he also added the little storefront Gotta’ Have It! where you can find, “Antiques Maybe, Junk Always.”
Somewhere in there, for about a 10-year spell, Mr. Sanchez had a unique storefront in the Avatar Tat2 building, called Gas Works Mexican Restaurant, and next door at the current Dionysion Wine Cellar, there was a little B&B named Sleeping In with a check- out time of 2PM. “It was so handy with the restaurant next door. We would just feed them before they left.”
Now Mr. Sanchez focuses on Hair By Man- uel/Gotta Have It! As he stated about the shop, “most of the items come because I like them, so I know someone else is going to like them, so I buy them. And if I fall in love with a piece, I know someone else has Gotta Have It!”
If you have been in his combined shop of Hair By Manuel and Gotta Have It, you still see the skills he acquired at ASU and Yavapai. Hand-painted walls to hand-stitched jackets accentuate a complete environmental trans- formation as he clips away at your hair and makes you feel right at home. And it brings him pleasure too. As Mr. Sanchez stated, “I feel real complete and content. I am doing what I love, still, and I feel real lucky.”
| Annabel Sclippa has been known to pass the karoake mic from time to time. steakandmustard@gmail.com
40 • SEPTEMBER 2012 • the NOISE arts & news magazine • thenoise.us