Who the heck with hair

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Who the heck with hair

Long beautiful hair

Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair,hair,hair,hair…..

Lyrics from the musical Hair

   If you’re my age, you should remember the song Hair. It was a time when the Beatles had shown the world that it was OK for a man to have long hair. Of course, if you look a bit further back you will see pictures of Wild Bill Cody and General George Custer, both with more than shoulder length hair.

   Then came World War I and the need for close cut hair to keep lice and other cooties at bay. The style persisted through past another couple of wars and then with a nation no longer with a threat of imminent world war, rock and roll was born. With it came the expected teenage rebellion. Music, style, and questioning authority. All generations have done this to some extent or another, but the baby boomers were here to set a record as to how fast it was to change. Add to that a giant leap in technology enabling us to go to the moon.

    I personally remember buying a LED calculator for $ 20 that was about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It ran on a nine volt battery and could only do basic calculations up to eight digits. Once I understood how this thing worked and knowing that if I could buy that, if you had real money to throw at the digital industry, it wouldn’t take long to be rich. Of course I was in the Army and had no money. The calculator had taken around a quarter of my month’s personal money. No eating out for a couple of weeks.

   But, I digress. ( Get used to it, I tend to do that a bit ) Hair from about 1964 has evolved into more of a personal statement. My personal statement has changed over the years, sometimes to please others, other times to please me. These days long hair requires too much maintenance and I’m a fairly low maintenance guy. I tend to keep my hair short in the belief that it makes me look younger. I didn’t really worry too much about trying to look young. I had great genes and when I was 21 could have passed for 15 if I hadn’t been so tall. My rebellion came late and after seven years in the Army I decided to let it all hang out. I grew my hair and beard out in an attempt to look older. Looking at pictures of myself back then, I just looked like a dorky hippy.

   I guess I said all of that to say goodbye to my hair. In the past week the shower drain has looked like a drain in a beauty salon- after a whole day. It doesn’t matter what product you use. Of course, if the cancer dies I’ll be happy- just wearing a cap to keep my head from getting sunburned. So far, it’s only been facial hair, which seems a bit funny to me. If a chemical you are taking has the side effect of hair loss, why is it only facial hair.

   Days have passed and as my hair started looking more like a bag of feathers was dumped on a sweaty head. So armed with a pair of hair clippers I cut some of it off to even it out. And now I look a bit like a dog with mange. My beard seems to be the only thing growing now, and I only need to shave about once a week.

    I’ll be ranting on about other things in the future, so stay tuned and if you see a tall, skinny, bald, Ichabod Crane looking guy, look twice. It may be me.