Gimme A Head With Hair

In My Younger Days ... With Hair!

Gimme A Head With Hair

I need a haircut.

OK, OK, I really don't have much hair left. It decided to fly south at some point, promised to bring me back a t-shirt, but you guessed it, it never returned. Oh well, hair today, gone tomorrow.

Now, I'm not completely bald. Just a vacant lot in my ego on the top. So the monk-style fringe needs a shearing every once in a while to keep total picture looking more or less uniform.

I go to an old-fashioned barber, the kind that wields a mean razor and nicks your ear. I don't mind. He has Sesame Street band-aids, and he always gives me a blue Grover one. I like Grover. He's a bit flaky, I know, but so am I.

It's funny what hair means to people. Long hair on men was once a bold statement against the establishment. I remember growing my hair long in Grade 9, and the principal of the school "counselled" me about the necessity of maintaining a decent and civil appearance. I countered that someone's appearance is not the test or the classroom yardstick of a person's character. So, my mother enjoyed my company at home for the next three school days, but despite her conservative country girl upbringing, she stood up for me.

After my brief holiday at home, she marched me back to school and presented the principal with a Declaration of Independence that revoked his rights in loco parentis, and she assured him that I would dress and wear my hair as she and I saw fit. The tea was in the harbour, and I must admit that it was a very cool moment between my mom and me. My hair grew and grew for the rest of the school year.

These days, one's hair is so intertwined with one's self-image and self-esteem that it's almost laughable. Blondes have more fun, brunettes are earthy and sensual, and red heads are as wacky as Woody Woodpecker. Oh, the stereotypes go on forever.

For some reason, both women and men believe their hair and a whole range of different hair styles somehow enhance their sex appeal. Hair is tinted, twirled, tossed, teased, tortured, and a whole bunch of other t-words. The truth is that, in bed, the last thing that matters is how perfect your hair is. I mean, who, other than my ex-wife, would say, "Be careful, you're going to mess my hair." Matter of fact, if you come out of your lovemaking moment with your hair in perfect order, well, I suspect you just weren't doing the trick properly.

Some young people now wear their hair gelled straight up. I think that little fashion faux pas has to do with being electrocuted. No, kids with those hair styles haven't really been electrocuted, but they live in such an electric age and are so wired into video games, computers, personal music players, and cell phones that I think that stick-em-up hair style is merely a form of preparation for when they do get electrocuted. Some would argue that would be no loss.

When I was a lad in the 60's , I wore my hair pretty long, shoulder length and beyond. All that is gone now.

Fortunately, my hair was the only thing to disappear from my younger years. I still have my sense of humour, and given the right stimuli, I can still do most of the things that I could do then — certainly still more than capable and ready to do the horizontal shuffle at a moment's notice without the need for a hit of Viagra.

That is not to say, I wouldn't mind trying one of those little blue pills. I'd be the guy with the four-hour erection, Oooo ... imagine the possibilities.

Never mind. Quit imagining.

Well, since my kids are taking me out for dinner this weekend, I need to clean up the mop-sans-top.

I need to do it today, so that the nick on my ear will be at least partially healed by Friday.