Preoccupied With Hair

I enjoy writing these birthday essays for one primary reason: they help me gain a perspective on what sorts of things preoccupy me as I get older. At one point, for example, I worried about becoming one of the older college students at Southern Utah University, oh, about twenty years ago. Actually, it wasn’t so much that I worried as it was a kind of perverse humor in being considered the “grandpa” of the class at that time. Fortunately, both the campus and I were spared this situation as I chickened out when my career stabilized before I had a chance to sign the dotted line.

As I’ve gotten older the preoccupations have shifted inward somewhat. I’ve focused on various creaks and groans that I feel (and occasionally hear) when the house is quiet. I’ve also talked about being of an age where I most remember my own Dad; that age where kids are nearly grown, your own body has turned decidedly hostile, and your teeth retired years before you were ready to do the same.

This year it’s hair. Mine, specifically.

I’ve noticed lately that it isn’t quite as obedient as it used to be. I’m beginning to understand why some men my age keep it cut shorter than your average marine. It’s just easier to deal with that way.

I’ve never been terribly good at keeping my hair trimmed appropriately. Up until high school, Dad would take me to the barber just before school started and have him give me the dreaded “buzz cut.” They called it a “crew cut” to make it sound stylish, but the fact was that for a skinny undersized boy with over-sized self-esteem issues, it was like having a visit with Torquemada and his band of Merry Men. I always came away from those haircuts looking like someone had stuck a fuzzy billiard ball on top of a pipe cleaner. This was the look I sported in every official school photo until about my sophomore year. After these traumatic experiences, Dad would have to growl at me to get me to accompany him to the barber any time sooner than six months afterward. I still don’t get to the barber anywhere near as often as I should.

My high school years were largely marked by the fact that it took me longer than most boys my age to discover the delights of regular showers. Hence my hair always looked as if I’d been using Dad’s Brylcreem, when in fact it was simply plastered under a layer of self-manufactured oil and, occasionally, dirt. Photos taken of me from this period confirm that I spent most of my adolescence looking like the quintessential nerd boy, all the while wondering why on earth I was having absolutely no luck in attracting members of the opposite sex.

Fortunately, sometime before I graduated I began to discover that, with regular showers and a good bottle of shampoo, I was able to not only converse with actual girls, but, in my senior year of high school take on the challenge of an actual girlfriend!

Then, of course, there was my mission. My mission, wonderful experience that it was, was clearly a step backwards in the area of personal hygiene. I lived for two years in the mountains of Guatemala, where the next shower was never more than a week (or perhaps two) away. For the first six months or so of my time there I would hike in from our adobe hut on the outskirts of human contact, shower, pick up my stone-beaten laundry, buy a few groceries, play some broomstick hockey in the Momos House, then prepare to hike back out to my area for another week of questionable cleanliness.

Oh, there was the river, of course. It flowed about 500 yards below us, accessible by a trail with a 72-degree incline, and enough privacy that we didn’t have to worry about K’iche women surprising us with laundry detail. However, one step in that water was enough to convince me that this particular river flowed directly from some sort of ancient American glacier and that the only reason it didn’t ice over was that it was flowing too fast.

The alternative, out there in the Guatemalan highlands, was the tuj or sauna bath. A tuj was a large adobe igloo with two holes. One for gaining entrance, and the other for placing super-heated rocks that you splashed water onto to get the full steam effect of a sauna. Tuj baths were great, but you still never got one more frequently than once or twice a month.

Once I returned to civilization, my grooming returned to a state of near-normal, including daily (unless it’s just not possible) showers. Also, except for a brief period where I fooled myself into parting it down the middle, I have not sported any other hair style than the one I have now. I have less hair with which to maintain that style, true; but there’s been no call or reason to deviate from it.

The thing is, lately my hair has seemed less… willing to be parted where I’ve been parting it for over thirty years now. Ultimately we get there, but it takes longer. Doesn’t even matter whether my hair is freshly cut or a tad longer. Also, when I shampoo my hair nowadays it feels somewhat coarser. I know it’s getting grayer; been on that track for awhile now. I just can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that my hair, like my skin, is less pliable than it once was.

Thank goodness I’ve reached the age where I’m less concerned about mid-life crises, and more concerned with having any sort of pension left after Obama gets through with us. Maybe, before my money runs out, I should do something bold; something daring. Something that would call attention to myself without worrying the neighbors that I was joining a separatist movement.

Maybe I’ll build myself a tuj in the backyard.

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