>DANA DUFFIELD

ON THE FIRST BLOCK OF WILSON STREET in Batavia, IL, you can drink from a water fountain and rest on a cast-iron bench. Potted flowers bloom around you. Downtown is quiet, quaint, normal. Until you turn around, and there in a window is a giant head sporting sunglasses and a flattop hairdo made of Styrofoam swimming-pool "noodles."

Welcome to FOLTOS Tonsorial Parlor (tonsorial is latin for "having to do with hair"), wherte good taste, sheer camp local history and camaraderie have combined to make this barber shop a success for the Foltos Family since 1963.

The purple pool-noodle flattop - the parlors logo - may not be the window décor original owner Joe Foltos had imagined, but it is the favorite d'do of current owner Joe's son, Craig Foltos.

"Flattops were popular in the 50's before flattops became popular in the 80's," Craig explains. "Not many people can do it. I like people who have the attitude toward independence. This is what I am."

Following his fathers death in the late 1970's, Craig gave up carpentry to work at the Tonsorial Parlor full-time. And we mean full-time - open to close, 9am to 8 pm, five or six days a week. Since he has been at the helm of business, Craig has done unorthodox things such as initiate open-mike nights at the parlor and distribute a 1,200-circulation newsletter. The has contained requests for pictures of kids' first Tonsorial haircuts to rememberances of customers past, to a recipe for Mrs. Moldovan's Romainian Nut Roll. Craig also started Chop Around the Clock about 10 years ago. Every June he and his five stylists cut hair for 30 hours straight, with proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House. What began as a charity fundraiser has turned into a town event, complete with magic show and pie-eating contest.

Craig Foltos makes another customer - and - friend - for life. It's unlikely this clean-cut young gentleman will soon forget his visit to the Tonsorial Parlor in Batavia, IL.