These Times

Catching up with Dawn, my favorite Mongolian

Kirk Ericson | Sep 26, 20240

Two weeks ago, I saw a couple in their 60s or 70s park their gear-laden bicycles on the sidewalk in front of a business near the Journal. I hurried outside and asked where they were bicycling to.

“Patagonia,” the man said.

“Patagonia?” I replied.

Do you mean the Patagonia that’s at the tip of South America?

“Yes,” he replied.

“We started in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,” the woman said.

The two had mischievous and adventuresome smiles.

It hadn’t occurred to me that if you’re biking from Prudhoe Bay to Patagonia, you go through Shelton. The things we learn every day …

Well, that’s a column. I didn’t have time to sit with Ludwig and Heike Blumenstock of Germany that day in Shelton, so we exchanged contact information. Unfortunately, the Blumenstocks and I haven’t connected again, leaving my column pantry empty for this week.

I decided to get a haircut — maybe that would refill the pantry — and the person who would be giving the haircut, Dawn the Mongolian barber, also has a mischievous, adventuresome smile, and lots of stories she tells well.

I hadn’t talked to Dawn in a year because I’ve let my hair grow to my shoulders for no reason other than the fact that I can. I made an appointment.

“Hi, Dawn,” I told Dawn last Friday at her shop, Capitol Barbers in Olympia.

Sometimes I use Dawn’s Mongolian name when I address her. Several years ago, I had her pronounce her Mongolian name into my phone’s recorder so I could practice. It’s spelled G-E-R-E-L-G-U-A. The first part starts as “G-A-R-E” like “care,” and the last part ends in a string of mush. When I tried to pronounce her Mongolian name when we met in 2018, she gave me a look of, “I appreciate the effort, but, Dawn’s OK.”

Dawn’s everything you want in a barber. She’s fastidious and accurate in her cuts, and she asks questions based on peoples’ answers, a highly underrated skill. She owns the business and only recently cut back to five days a week. She’s usually fully booked. She’s an immigrant. She works hard.

We sat to chat, and I saw she had a ring on her ring finger.

“Did you get married?” I asked.

“I did!” Huge smile.

She presented her ring finger as some newly married women do — hand extended, wrist set at 90 degrees, fingers pointing down. It’s the motion refined ladies of the day employed when extending their hands in greeting to a gentleman.

“How’d you meet?” I asked.

The story of that well-fated evening two years ago featured lots of tequila shots and dancing. She was too liquored up to drive home, so she walked into the bar of the Olympia restaurant where she had been dancing, looking for a place to idle so she could get straight.

In the bar, she saw two men sitting at a table, the only two people in the bar. She approached them.

“Are you guys gay?” she said.

No. They laughed, and she joined them.

And that’s how Dawn the Mongolian barber met her future husband.

She showed me pictures of her husband on their wedding day.

“You know,” I said. “He does look gay.”

“I know!” Dawn replied. “He says he gets that a lot!”

Dawn showed me more pictures of her wedding.

Why, if that isn’t Denny Heck, the lieutenant governor of the entire state of Washington. Heck was the officiant at the Mongolian’s wedding.

“He’s such a nice man,” Dawn said of Heck. “He’s a customer.”

“Why didn’t you invite me?” I asked.

“Because you weren’t around,” she immediately replied.

That’s true.

Where’d you get married?

“On an island,” Dawn said.

They bought a house in the Timberlakes neighborhood, not far from Hammersley Inlet, and the neighborhood has a lake island. The Mongolian is now a Mason County resident.

“I had been thinking about getting a yurt, but we settled on a stick house,” she said.

I didn’t get a haircut Friday. I only wanted to talk to Dawn, so I paid for her time.

However, after finishing our chat, I did have her trim the pin feathers on my neck. She then applied a hot towel to the nape, and that’s my second favorite part of getting a haircut from Dawn.

My favorite part is getting to listen to Dawn the Mongolian barber.