ESCONDIDO -- "The usual?" Art Provencio said as his customer eased into the 50-year-old leather and metal chair.

"Yeah, the usual," customer Jerry Cacioppo said. "Straight across the back."

For the next 15 minutes or so, Provencio snipped away at Cacioppo's hair, using the traditional barber tools of the trade: scissors, a comb, electric razor and straight-edge blade. Cacioppo talked about his days in the Army, wondered out loud about the name of a trumpet player in a favorite big band, and reminiscenced about the early days of Escondido, where he's lived since 1937.

As he tidied up the last stray hairs he cut, Provencio broke the news.

"I guess you know I'm closing the shop Saturday."

"Now I've got to find another barber," Cacioppo said. "We're losing one of the best barbers in town. I never got a bad haircut here."

Provencio recommended Grand Avenue Barber Shop, which has bought his chairs and charges the same for haircuts.

It's a conversation he has had many times the last few weeks as he prepares to close Arcade Barber Shop -- at 218 E. Grand Ave. -- the city's oldest barber shop.

As the only barber in the three-chair shop he owns, Provencio usually has a line of people waiting for haircuts. Customers often are waiting for him to open his doors at 7 a.m., and at slow times, his buddies from neighboring shops stop by to shoot the breeze.

"One day I let Art cut my hair," said Scott Kuhnly, who for 39 years had owned the art gallery next door and often holds court at Arcade. "I had been warned. I went home and my dog didn't recognize me. He growled and ran out the door, right through the screen. I never saw him again. And my wife almost left me."

Provencio rolled his eyes, having heard the story a thousand times before. Still, he had to smile, even when Kuhnly repeated the same story minutes later to the next customer.

At 73, Provencio is hanging up his scissors and moving to Illinois to be with his children and grandchildren. He and his wife of 40 years, Loraine, have lived in Escondido since moving from Tucson in 1976.

After cutting hair in Tucson for 22 years, Provencio followed his brother and sister to San Diego County. He and his brother, Irv, opened Art and Irv's Barber Shop in the Patio, an enclave of businesses off Grand Avenue in 1976.

Hidden from foot and vehicle traffic, the barber shop tucked down the hallway did not attract a single customer its first day, although soon enough the $2 haircuts began to lure a regular stream of seniors to the shop.

The Provencio brothers soon struck up a friendship with their competitors down the road, Jim Donalson and Wilbur "Smitty" Smith at Arcade Barber Shop.

By 1999, Irv was a cancer survivor and had decided to call it quits and move to Missouri, where he still lives. Not eager to run the shop on his own, Art Provencio accepted an invitation from Donalson to join him at Arcade, which Donalson joined in 1947.

After 18 years of looking at a wall across the hallway, Provencio said he welcomed moving into Arcade, which has a window facing Grand Avenue. Regulars walk by and wave, sometimes stopping in impulsively for a haircut or just to say hi to their favorite barber.

Donalson suffered a mild stroke a few years ago and sold the shop to Provencio and retired, but still stops by when Provencio needs a haircut.

Smith died in a traffic accident a few years ago, and most recently a woman who had been working at Arcade left to work elsewhere, leaving Provencio to go it alone in the shop's final months.

"It's kind of sad saying goodbye to some of these old customers," Provencio said. "I know more or less about all their lives. I've been cutting their hair so long."

Provencio cuts only boys' and men's hair, leaving the fancier styles for saloons that offer a variety of services. A sign on the back wall outlines everything offered in Provencio shop. It reads, "Haircuts, $12."

A few posters of dolphins and an array of model cars on a shelf make up the balance of the shop's modest decor. Easy-listening music Provencio compiled on six-hour VHS tapes plays throughout the day. The soft music doesn't seem to keep away youngsters who have become customers since short hair became fashionable a few years ago.

"I have some who come every seven or eight days," he said about his most regular customers. "They come in, and I don't know what they want me to cut. "

Provencio doesn't like to talk about politics in the shop, but everything else seems fair game. Photographer Alex Slattery, who has a studio down the hall from the barber shop, often stops by to hang out at the shop with Provencio and Kuhnly.

A compulsive jokester, Kuhnly spotted a customer in Provencio's chair and walked up to him and pretended to check for wounds. Provencio got him back by telling him to use thicker paint on his artwork because the numbers are showing through.

"I'll probably get a lot more done, Art, when you're gone," Kuhnly admitted as he thought about the hours he spends in the barber shop instead of his art studio.

While the scissors will go silent for the first time in more than 60 years at the Arcade this Saturday, Provencio said he hopes to pick up a part-time job as a barber after moving to Illinois.

For now, his final few customers are keeping him busy. Another walked in as the barber and painter were remembering their decades on Grand Avenue. Provencio recognized him as a regular.

"The usual?" he said as he picked up his comb and scissors.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.