A haircut to remember (11/12/2008)

Once again, I am scissorless.

Perhaps that's for the best.

When I first found myself in The CR's newsroom as a young reporter, there were no scissors in my desk. And in those days, when cut and paste wasn't a computer function but something that you sometimes had to do before sending a story back to composing, going without scissors could be a pain in the neck.

But I got by back then, borrowing a pair from Jeanette McKee when I needed them.

More recently, I'm back to borrowing again, having broken a pair last month. (They apparently don't make scissors like they used to.)

Really, it's just as well. I'd probably do some damage if I had a pair.

I've always held in high regard those folks who make their living with a pair of scissors. The notion of what sort of disaster I might make of someone's haircut if I were entrusted with the job is chilling.

Barb, who cuts my hair, has no such fear. She can talk, cut, style, update me on her kids, all while making me more presentable and never endangering my ears.

Maybe that's why, the other day when I was getting a trim, we drifted into a conversation about the worst haircuts of my life.

The first candidate was back in my freshman year at college. It was the 1960s, and every male not in uniform seemed to be letting his hair grow longer. Why? Who knows?

It couldn't have been a desire to be a non-conformist, since so many people were doing it. If you wanted to be a non-conformist, you could simply shave your head. At any rate, I fell into that conforming bit of pseudo-rebellion.

And by the time November rolled around, I was getting a little shaggy, certainly by Jay County standards at the time. So, when I called home about the middle of the month, it was no surprise that when I asked my father what he wanted for his birthday, his answer was simple: A haircut. Not his. Mine.

Trouble was, I was away at college and didn't know any barbers nearby. A few of my friends from high school were in barber college and would have accommodated me, but I didn't have any wheels to get from where I was to where they were.

So I walked in cold to a little shop in downtown Richmond.

The regulars in the barbershop must have felt as if they'd won the lottery. Here was a scruffy-looking college kid coming in for a haircut from a barber he'd probably never see again in his life. I figure I was the source of major amusement that morning.

I took my seat and tried to give some direction to the guy with the scissors and had just settled in when another patron entered. As if on cue, he hung his coat directly in front of the mirror I was facing.

Not only was I in the hands of an unknown barber, I had no idea what the heck he was up to.

What he was up to, of course, was a bit of a political statement about long-haired college students. He should have paid me for the opportunity, rather than the other way around.

It was a long, long walk back to campus that day. And it sure felt as if the wind was whistling around my ears.

But I know one thing, it was a birthday present my father never forgot.[[In-content Ad]]