One of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was to go to the barber shop. I loved going there with my Dad and my brother to get my hair trimmed. The owner of the shop was Bill (one of the few times I'll use someone's real name in this blog, especially since I don't know his last name and he's probably dead by now).
There was no appointment needed. You just walked right in. And it was good if you had to wait a bit because Bill had a lot of comic books in his waiting area. Most of all, I enjoyed the regular chance for male bonding. I way I understood it was this: "Barber shops are for boys, beauty shops are for girls."
Right about the time I turned nine years old, my mother took me get my hair done. This wasn't a big deal. She had taken me to Bill's when Dad was busy with something else. But this time, she didn't tell me we were going to the beauty shop. I said I didn't want to go inside because beauty shops are for girls. I wanted to go to Bill the barber. I was a boy.
Somehow, Mom was able to make me get my hair cut there. The result was pretty much the same as if Bill had done it, but I still didn't like that I had to do it at the beauty shop. I was thankful that no one from school saw me there.
I never did find out why Dad stopped taking Loyd and me to Bill. Years later, I remember him talking about how Bill would cut the hair very short and this didn't make for good repeat business, but I don't think that had anything to do with it. It didn't matter, Loyd and I continued to scream to be taken to Bill instead of the beauty shop, but we never went again.
My story does not stop there. When I was in the fourth grade, Mom took me to the beauty shop. When the woman was finished with my hair, I was shocked! She had hardly cut any of it off!
"Mom! My hair's still long!"
"Well, that's the way all the boys are wearing their hair now."
"I don't care, Mom! I don't want to look like a hippie!" (The only two things I knew about hippies at the time were that the guys had long hair and they were not generally respected by the population at large.)
Sure enough, Mom was right. The other guys were starting to wear their hair long, but I still wanted to look like a boy. This is especially surprising considering that, at this point, my Mom was already afraid that I was going to grow up gay. You'd think she'd want me to promote my masculinity instead of chipping away at it bit by bit, starting with the hair.
The thing is that after awhile, I actually enjoyed having long hair. However, by the time I reached high school, the fashion trend swung back to short hair for guys, but I still left my hair long. This led to many arguments with my Mom for two decades over the length of my hair. She kept screaming at me to get it cut and I wouldn't do it. When I was in college, she'd write me letters begging me to cut my hair. I'd write back that she should be thankful that my hair was the only thing about me she had an issue with, because I could have just as easily have become an alcoholic, a drug addict, a criminal or worse. There were times when she would talk me into cutting it, but I always grew it back and the argument started all over again. I kept pointing out that having long hair was her idea and if she didn't like arguing with me over it, she shouldn't have let the beautician cut my hair long in the first place.
When I was 34, I had gone through a seven-year period in which I didn't cut my hair. It became very damaged during that time, so I decided to shave it all off. The plan was to keep it short until I turned 40 and then I was going to grow it long again. That never happened because I had met the woman I was going to marry before then and she said she wouldn't find me attractive with long hair. It's been short ever since.
I still have dreams about my hair being long. I hate waking up from them.
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