Long, beautiful hair down to there? Not here
I looked at my grandson’s seventh grade school picture and noticed his nice, long hair. It fits him well and isn’t all in his face and frizzed out like an ’80s heavy metal rocker. Yes, I’m a bit jealous.
When I was his age, long hair was the style. So were Earth Shoes, bell bottoms and wide collars on leisure suits. But it was the hair that was key. And no matter how I tried to look like Roger Daltrey, I ended up looking like the Shaggy Dog. A real dork.
Everyone around me had long hair and mutton chops. Since I couldn’t grow anything facial except for acne, I did my best to let my hair grow down to there, shoulder length or longer; shining, gleaming, streaming, grow it, show it. Hair!
Uh, no. Unlike the song, I was blessed with bush hair. It didn’t grow long, it grew out like a shrubbery. And, just to make it more demoralizing, it was wavy. Thick and wavy, like it was styled in a hurricane. But I was determined and ignored nature.
One day I decided that maybe I could force the issue and make the part down the middle like David Cassidy. But that’s like switching a hand with a foot; you can’t mess with God’s creation. But I could try. And then my sister got involved.
Now, as the only boy in the family and the youngest by several years, my sisters always wanted a little sister. So they thought it was fun to dress me up in girl’s clothes. Consequently, I was a nurse or an old lady every Halloween until I finally said I wanted to be a vampire like the other boys.
Like a mad scientist, my sister gathered a variety of combs and brushes and went to work. Then, to my horror, she reached for the barrettes. I backed off wondering what she was doing, but she insisted that if I wanted the desired look, I had to use barrettes to hold the hair in place. Reluctantly, I let it go. The only saving grace was they weren’t in the shape of butterflies or ladybugs.
But there I was, a 13-year-old boy, with barrettes on either side of my head. It was humiliating, but, of course, my mom and sisters thought it was cute. I didn’t dare go outside that day. And, thankfully, there were no photos or social media.
The next day, with the barrettes safely removed, I went to school and received more than one “what did you do to your hair?” The part down the middle held but it didn’t make any difference to my bush hair. Eventually, I just went back to my dad's barber and got what was known as the boy’s cut.
These days, at my age, I’m just thrilled to have a head of hair. And, yes, the gray is starting to creep in, even with the lengthy ear hairs. But I’m not doing anything about that. I learned long ago not the mess with nature.
Ray Kisonas is the regional editor of The Monroe News and The Daily Telegram. He can be reached at rayk@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Ray Kisonas: Long, beautiful hair down to there? Not here
