Everyone's life has a story. In "Lives," we tell some of those stories about North Shore people who have died recently. "Lives" runs Mondays in The Salem News.
The tour bus was heading through Galway Bay in Ireland under a full moon. It might have been a scene memorable for its beauty alone — one worthy of a picture or a postcard, perhaps.
But for Jack Rakip, the scene outside his window called for a song: "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie ..."
"He started singing 'That's Amore,' and literally the whole bus broke out in song," said Rakip's grandson Greg of Beverly.
Rakip was never shy about belting out a tune, whether it was Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin, or even the popular contemporary songs his grandchildren knew, like "It Wasn't Me" by Jamaican reggae singer Shaggy or the 2007 hit "Hey There Delilah" by the band Plain White T's.
Silence was never golden for Rakip. It was a perfect attribute for a barber, who, when he wasn't singing, always kept a lively discussion going while cutting hair.
"He liked the people, he liked the, shall we call them, discussions," said his wife, Ann. "He'd take the opposite side just to get somebody going."
Rakip, 77, died Sept. 19 surrounded by his family in his Topsfield home.
He worked at his Danvers barbershop on Hobart Street until December, when his rheumatoid arthritis made it too difficult to work. The same disease claimed the life of his daughter, Sally, when she was 27 years old in 1987.
He didn't know it at the time, but he also had congestive heart failure. The disease later claimed his life.
Born in Lowell on Feb. 16, 1933, he was the youngest of 12 children — 11 boys and one girl.
He lived in Ayer during his childhood and joined the Navy. He later dated a girl who went to Forsyth Dental School in Boston, but when another man entered the picture, she set him up on a blind date with her college roommate.
They hit it off on the first date, Ann remembers.
They were married on July 4, 1955, and he worked at Finnegan's Barber Shop in Danvers until 1964, when he jumped at an opportunity to open his own shop. Jack's Barber Shop became a fixture in town.
Rakip used to jokingly call his store Floyd's Barber Shop, after the one portrayed in "The Andy Griffith Show."
"He might have guys that sit there all day shooting the breeze," his son, Peter, said.
He loved work and would drive to his shop in the middle of a snowstorm even if only one customer might show up. He also hated being closed on Saturdays, a barber's busiest day.
So much so that he wouldn't go to half of the weddings he was invited to because it meant he'd have to close for the day. The family left for vacations and weekend getaways on Saturday afternoons.
Those who didn't know Jack from his barbershop might remember him from his second business, Betty Ann's Sub Shop. The two businesses shared a building on Hobart Street.
He bought the business in 1974 and made a name with his generous portions of cold cuts and the meatballs, his mother's recipe.
Work began early each day for Rakip when he'd go to Murphy's in Danvers Square at dawn to buy vegetables for the sub shop. He'd get everything ready for when his staff arrived, then head over to the barbershop and work there until closing. He'd finish his day at the sub shop.
Jack's children, most of his grandchildren and their friends worked at the sub shop. While the food was memorable (their busiest day was the day after Thanksgiving when college kids and former residents returned for the weekend), Jack's personality was the icing on the cake.
Business wasn't always great for a barber, and one of the profession's most difficult periods came not with a recession or war, but with an invasion that proved hairy. That was the British invasion, when the shaggy-haired Beatles brought business almost to a standstill. Some days he'd sit at the shop without a single customer. His wife had to go back to work as a dental hygienist.
"He always used to say, 'I'm going to hang in there, and when the fad ends I'm going to get all these customers back,'" Ann recalled.
He did.
Rakip tried to come off as "gruff" and a "tough guy." When you made a comment about the weather, he'd respond: "What are you, a friggin' weatherman?"
But inside, he was a teddy bear, according to his family.
On vacations at their condo in New Hampshire, he'd wake up one of his six grandchildren early in the morning and take him or her for breakfast and then a gondola ride up Loon Mountain. He made sure, "Now don't tell anyone," his granddaughter Jackie remembers.
The next day, he'd take another one.
At weddings and Saturday date nights, when he and his wife and two other couples would go ballroom or square dancing, crowds would gather around him.
"No matter where he was, he'd jump up. He ended up being the life of the party — always told jokes, always out there dancing," Peter said.
"And sometimes his wife would say, 'Please sit down and be quiet,'" Ann said.
"And everybody else would say, 'Please, get up and keep going,'" Peter added.
Though Ann lived in Topsfield most of her life and went to high school there, she said Jack knew more people downtown than she did.
"Talking about him now, I never realized how funny he was," she said. "You just live with a person for 55 years, you don't see these particular characteristics until you sit down and start talking about him and it comes to life."
Rakip sold the sub shop in 2007, and his wife sold the barbershop last April when she knew he could no longer work.
"It was a very, very hard decision the day I drove out with all his stuff. It was his life," Ann said.
On the last day of Rakip's life, while he was under hospice care, his family gathered around him in his home and remembered him, not through tears but song.
They spent the night singing and dancing to his favorite songs, from Frank Sinatra to Shaggy.
Now, that's amore.
Raw Video: Hail Storm Batters Oklahoma City
California's Foie Gras Ban About to Begin
6-Year-Old Going to National Spelling Bee
Video Essay: Funky Winkerbean Comic Turns 40
On Thailand Trip, Suu Kyi Visits Migrants
Raw Video: Pink Diamond Auctioned for $17.4M
Hurricane Andrew Remembered, 20 Years Later
Sister Says She Reported Brother in Patz Killing
Patz Suspect's Sister: I Went to Police in 1980s
Diplomatic Expulsions Follow Fresh Syria Report
15 Dead in Northern Italy's 5.8-magnitude Quake
Witness Describes Fla. Face-chewing Attack
Man Falls Off Crane, Dies After Police Standoff
Russia Condemns Ally Syria Over Massacre of 108
Dairy Farm Uses Chiropractor to Help Cows
Unexpected Smog in Pristine National Parks
Air Canada Plane Makes Emergency Landing
New Ticks Spread Across Southeast, Diseases Rise
Bring Your Own Tech Programs Charge Up Students
Service Dogs Help Wash. Soldiers Battling PTSD
