hair day

I got my hair cut today.

I'm a guy, and I'm nearly 49 years old, so it's not really a big deal.
It's not like my hair style changes much, and five or six weeks
between haircuts isn't ever going to give me much time for a
radical new look, unless I change something, and go for a new look, which I did about a year ago. My stylist (my niece Ashley) finally convinced me to give up the out-dated, hard spikey,
and the wet, combed back looks. I finally gave in, and started wearing my "bangs" pushed forward, like the kids are wearing it these days. Or were.

Guys have always had it pretty easy with hair styles. There's only so much we can do, unless we're in a rock band. I guess, I've really only had four definitive hair styles in my lifetime. Well, five, if you count those few months in the late 1980's when I sported the Night Club Manager Mullet.


From birth until about 3rd grade, I wore it high and tight, like a proper 1960's kid.
1969 marked a radical transformation on the American landscape, and Edgewood Elementary School was not spared the movement, as our bangs began to reach our eyebrows.
I blame Peter Tork from the Monkees for this development.

I hit Junior High in the mid 1970's, and of course, that meant long, feathered, middle-parted hair, which just barely covered the back of my 101% polyester flowered Disco shirt.
I think that I wore my hair long through High School and College, and probably didn't go short again until the mid-1980's in Chicago. This would be when I started using gels, paste, and mousse for the wet spiked look, which eventually gave way to the hard and straight Gordon Gekko comb-back. "Greed is good". Turns out the hair style was not.

But I'm much more hip now.

As I brushed my teeth tonight, I had a moment in the mirror when I remembered that I had gotten the haircut, and that I would look different to others tomorrow, and for just a moment, I wondered if anyone at work would notice, and comment on my different look. I know that this is an odd and needy thought for a 49 year old man, but just as the thought passed through my newly coifed head, I dismissed it as a silly and insecure thought. But before I could move on, I flashed on a memory from my youth that had taught me to adapt with my environment, and grow past a childhood insecurity. And it started with a haircut.

I have some fairly distinct memories from Third Grade of getting a haircut, and being very self-conscious about it when I walked into Mrs. Harper's classroom the next day. In fact, I think I even lingered out in the wide, tiled hallway after the morning bell, afraid to enter the classroom, until Mrs. Harper pulled me in. I imagined that every kid was snickering at me as I walked down the aisle to my desk. I'm sure that someone must have said something at some point to trigger this, and I don't remember a specific comment, but I do recall being so embarrassed that morning that I opened the lid to my desk, and closed it on my inserted head, so that no one could see me. I don't remember how that was resolved, but I don't imagine Mable allowed me to spend the entire school day with my head in my desk.

I don't believe I had an extreme reaction to every haircut of my youth. I know that I was always self-conscious about it, but that all changed one Monday morning when I saw Scott Vance calmly stroll into Mrs. Benham's 5th Grade class, clearly sporting a short, new, weekend haircut, and yet, he he didn't seem at all bothered by it. He just brazenly walked right in, and confidently went about his 5th grade business. I remember thinking that he almost had a swagger about him, and a little thing like a haircut was not going to put him off his game. I decided that day that, if Scott Vance could handle a haircut with so much cool, then I could too. At this moment, it sorta reminds me of an old favorite Country song...."If Bubba can dance, I can too..."

The very next time I came to school with a fresh, new bowl cut, I thought of Scott's air of confidence, and I confidently strolled into class, and took my place at my desk, and amazingly, not one kid made fun of me, or even commented on my hair. Maybe they never had, but I imagined they might, and up until that day, I had allowed it to haunt me. But I learned that day to adapt and build my self confidence by watching how a peer handled a similar life situation, and model his positive, confident behavior. It was a life lesson in 5th grade that I clearly have not forgotten.

I just wish Scott Vance had been around in the late 1980's to talk me out of that mullet....



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