Pelayo was drafted into the Army and sent to Ft. Bragg, N.C. Then he was assigned to the Jump School at Ft. Benning, Ga. He served in the 18th Airborne Corps artillery division in Ft. Bragg for two years.
The Mall Barber Shop has been in the same location for more than 50 years, though the entrance to the Mall, near the Food Court, expanded around the shop over the years.
Cel Pelayo with Hugh Codding, the original developer of the Merced Mall.
Cel Pelayo, 80, cuts his retirement cake during a celebration inside his barber shop that has been located at the Merced Mall since 1971.
Cel Pelayo with his twin daughters, Elizabeth and Annette.
You could say 80-year-old Cel Pelayo has seen and heard it all.
He’s been cutting hair and talking to clients since he took over the Mall Barber Shop in 1971 — that’s only a few years after the Merced Mall opened up back in 1969.
Over the years, Pelayo has witnessed plenty of changes at the town’s main shopping center. He has seen lots of friendly, and sometimes famous faces, and many young people grow into adulthood.
He has been a steady presence, even after a pandemic, and despite the six-month business closure that came with it.
And most of all, he has enjoyed getting to know longtime customers, and becoming part of their lives, and their children’s lives.
“Oh yeah, I’m going to miss them,” Pelayo told the Times. “I have a lot of clients — some come from Le Grand, Dos Palos, Chowchilla, Mariposa … I even have a couple from Yosemite. … All these places.”
Pelayo bid farewell to them all last Friday, Dec. 27, during a retirement party inside the shop where he was surrounded by family and friends. There was applause, some laughs and a few tears.
Pelayo’s daughter, Annette, described the moment as bittersweet, saying she used to hang around the shop and do small chores just to earn some spare change to spend around the Mall.
“We were pretty much raised in here,” she said, referring to herself and her twin sister, Elizabeth, and sisters Sydney and Arlene.
Pelayo responded: “My kids, they don’t know me anywhere else but here. I started cutting hair when my oldest was born. All my kids know me just cutting hair.”
He added, “This is my second home.”
But Elizabeth interjected, “I would say ‘first home’ Dad.”
Everyone laughed when the girls admitted their father never learned how to style women’s hair, so they all had “boy cuts” when they were little.
An Amazing Journey
Pelayo was born in 1944, in Jalisco, in the state of Guadalajara, Mexico. He came to the United States when he was 12 years old and grew up in Winton. He attended Atwater High School but did not graduate from there, finishing his GED degree later while in the U.S. Army.
Pelayo was drafted into the Army at age 21, and sent to Ft. Bragg, N.C. Then he was assigned to the Jump School at Ft. Benning, Ga. He served in the 18th Airborne Corps artillery division in Ft. Bragg for two years.
After that he went to the U.S. Navy and served on the USS Enterprise. He was the ship’s serviceman third class and a bowswain’s mate, working on the bridge of the massive Navy ship.
Ultimately Pelayo was declared 100 percent disabled from the frequent explosions he heard on the Enterprise and suffered PTSD from war exposure in Vietnam.
“A friend of mine was a barber on the ship and they needed an extra barber. I didn’t know how to cut hair but learned in four to five months,” Pelayo said.
Back home, Pelayo went to Fresno’s Mohler Barber College in December 1959 and finished that in 9 months. He then started working for the Kingsmen Beauty Shop and then went to a barber shop “near the fountain on 17th Street.”
In 1971, there was an opening for a barbershop at the Merced Mall which had opened just a few years earlier. Pelayo’s first day was on Nov. 3 of that year. His first client was a 3-year-old boy. He used to have a framed picture of the boy on display in the shop.
At one point, the late actor Paul Newman was a part-owner of the Merced Mall and Pelayo remembers meeting him. Sometimes Newman would bring Hollywood to the mall and that meant seeing costumed characters from the “Planet of the Apes” movies and other Disney characters.
Pelayo also spent time working with his grandson Shawn Vargas, who also operated a barber shop in Atwater until the COVID-19 pandemic shut it down.
Today, Pelayo has 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandkids.
The 80-year-old barber told the Times he feels it’s time to retire due to his age, retirement dreams, and changes at the Mall. Last year, the Mall was sold to a new owner and it has since been rebranded as “Marketplace At Merced.” Plans are on the way for new retail stores and restaurants.
Pelayo is looking forward to spending time with family and seeing new places in a travel RV.
However, you might still see him at the old Mall in the future. He said he plans on visiting his old friends, making the rounds, and “walking the Mall.”