Haircut is a step toward normalcy

As I write this, it is “haircut eve.”

Tomorrow, if all goes well, my wife and I will finally be getting much needed grooming.

We haven’t completely forgone haircuts during the pandemic, but they happened less often. And as the second surge took place in the autumn, we were more inclined to let it grow.

While Connie has continued to be not only presentable but lovely over the past several months, I have often been disreputable.

Scruffy is another word that comes to mind.

And that, in turn, led to one amateur trim a month or so ago.

My mane, if you can call it that, was completely out of control. That was especially true at the back.

It wasn’t enough for a ponytail or even a man-bun. But it was thick.

Apparently, that’s how hair works.

Years ago, Joe Biden — now President of the United States — underwent a hair plug treatment to combat the thinning stuff on top. Where did they get the good stuff to transplant? From the back of the head, of course.

So a couple of months back, Connie took a whack at it. (That is undoubtedly the most accurate phrase.)

She cut and she whacked. And while she wasn’t thrilled with the results, I knew it was an improvement.

I looked less like a mountain man, less like Bigfoot and less like one of the Berenstain Bears.

Still, with a real haircut on the horizon and a sense of anticipation, I find myself thinking back to haircuts past:

•There was the time my mother decided to economize and bought a home barber kit. Apparently, the price jump from 25 cents to 50 cents at Antrim’s was more than she could bear. All went well until that afternoon when I was about 12 when one of the trim guides fell off and she gave me a haircut that was variously described as a “reverse Mohawk” and “an accident with a buzzsaw.”

•There was the time my freshman year of college that I agreed to get a haircut as a “gift” for my father’s birthday. (I have written about this before.) After I’d sat down in the barber’s chair, someone hung a coat in front of the nearest mirror. That provided free license to cut it far shorter than I ever would have asked for. (My father liked it.)

•There was the time I came back from a summer hitchhiking across Europe with locks bleached by the sun that hung down nearly to my shoulders. At my request, my girlfriend/fiancée/now wife of nearly 50 years gave me a haircut, something she’d never done before. A bowl was not used. But it looked like a bowl had been used. If you’ve ever seen a label on Dutch Boy Paint, you’ll have an idea of what I looked like afterward.

But tomorrow will be different.

Amanda hasn’t much to work with. Thinning hair, long hair, graying hair. But she’ll make it work.

And maybe, just maybe, it will be one of those important steps as we attempt to get back to living the way we used to live before we ever heard a word about COVID-19.