Haircuts

While I was writing the blog about Saturday morning cartoons, I shed light on a little visited area of my past: haircuts. My brothers and I would usually don shaved heads in the summer. I guess it was just easier for my mom to place a board across an empty oil drum/ trash can and lift us up there to receive our "butch" for the season. She would leave just a little patch in front where we would dab on a little bit of "butch wax". As I remember, it was pink, sticky, but smelled clean and fresh like the barber shop. There was very little foolishness when it came to hair, discipline and my 5'-2" mom.



When we got older, long hair became cool. I learned the hard way as an adolescent that long, unwashed hair was laughed at. So, the people-pleaser in me succumbed to peer-pressure and began washing my hair everyday. Up until then, washing the hair for men wasn't much more than a quick scrub with a bar of soap and that was it. At that point, in the 70's, products came out to wrangle the men-folk into a primarily female world: hair care products. I was the first boy I knew that got a shag. I guess my mom persuaded me to go to a "stylist" and get my hair cut in layers, as opposed to the barber's way of my past, cutting the top to one length and buzzing the sides. We then had to arm ourselves with our sister's/ mom's hair dryer each morning. It became a two-hour ritual for guys to get ready when at an earlier time it took all but 10 minutes to shower, dry, get dressed and head out the door.

One thing that my dad handed down to me and outlives hairstyles and fashion- its wearing cologne. My dad would always put on some sort of tonic after he shaved and a faint smell would remain even after he got home from work. In the 60's my dad started using a cologne that I love to this day called Aramis. People at the store counters roll their eyes when I ask about it, but it really smells good and it has stayed around for over 40 years. I never fell for the Jade East/ Hi Karate of the 60's. It all smelled the same to me: Skin Bracer. Still to this day, I don't feel complete without wearing some kind of cologne before I start my day.

I am glad that hair went back to no-fuss in that past several years. I haven't used a blow dryer for 10 years. I like to throw some gel on my half-wet head, spike it up and go. Brenda is looking online for a new doo for you-know-who. I only hope that it doesn't involve hair dryers.