Alright, alright, I've had just about all the comments I want to hear about my press photo adjacent to this column. It all started when someone said they could hardly recognize me in the picture. Then, while I was still smarting, someone else asked me why I was using my prom picture.
To begin with, I categorically deny that I've ever used a prom photo. I attended a prom once, but I didn't photo. And to prove that it is me in the photo, I am now making my complete and unabridged hair history a matter of public record. I challenge my hair detractors to do the same.
The full hair story began with my birth in 1958. I had no hair to speak of in the delivery room, but by grammar school, I had enough hair to require periodic haircuts. My brothers and I didn't visit a real barber. Instead, our Father took it upon himself to make certain we had the correct hair look.
That meant he attacked our heads with a second-hand hair trimmer that could have doubled as a weed whacker. It not only chopped off all our hair, but it digested the trimmings, too. With only one setting, it allowed for only one style - the Nub Look.
Fortunately, somewhere in the mid-60's, the trimmer mysteriously disappeared. At that point, we were passed on to grim-faced barbers sporting crewcuts. Not surprisingly, they didn't share our fascination with a brave new world populated by sissified men with long hair.
In other words, we still got the Nub Look, but we suffered the added indignity of sitting up in a giant plate glass window so the whole planet could watch while we got scalped. In some ways, it was a character builder. And it also led to the first of many Hair Defiance Incidents in my life.
In his defense, the offending barber was a substitute who had no idea that I was in total command of my hair destiny. Since my previous scalping, I had been disguising my need for a haircut by combing my blonde hank of hair behind my ear. Once I got to school, I was able to pull it down across my forehand in such a way as to further cultivate my twelve-year-old "hip-guy with a greasy blond hank of hair" image.
The barber saw through my ploy immediately, combed the hank over to one side, and was halfway through hacking off the entire hank before I realized it. Awakening to the danger, I cancelled the haircut, paid the stunned barber with the money Mother gave me, and stomped out with what was left of my disfigured hank pulled over to one side.
Mother, who had been waiting in the car, understandably blew a gasket when she saw the half hank hanging across my pointy little defiant head. I smiled inwardly, envisioning the sweet revenge she would reek on the barber. Instead, she tactfully informed me that besides looking incredibly stupid, I had just paid full price for half a haircut.
I don't really remember how I survived Dadâ
Monday
August 4th, 2025
5:43AM
