Submitting myself to someone else’s version of me
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- July 16, 2018
- 1402
Guys, how often do you get your hair cut, assuming you still have some? And ladies, don’t think for a moment I’ve forgotten you. My guess — and it’s only that — is that you head to the salon way more often than we do, be it for a coloring or a trim or a perm.
For this week you’re excused from feeling bad about vanity.
Men are just, well, different, at least I am. My rule of thumb when it comes to getting my hair cut is that I’ll do it twice a year, whether I need to or not.
I dislike it immensely. Very few things in my life are as traumatic as submitting myself to someone else’s version of what I should look like.
It’s not natural. Then again, what choice do I have? Sure, I could have eschewed all tonsorial parlors since I was old enough to want to look good, but then I’d be Cousin Itt with silver hair, and no one wants that.
And if that pop-culture reference eludes you, head for Google immediately and type in, “The Addams Family TV Show Sixties.” You won’t be sorry.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always grown my hair long. Part of this, faithful readers may recall, can be laid foursquare at the doormat of Catholic schools, which I attended from grade 1-8, roughly age 6-13.
These were my formative years — 1961-68 — the ones that pretty much defined who I’d become, and the nuns had a role in it because they were the ones who had all the power.
Sure, there were a few priests and a lay teacher or two along the way, but they also took a back seat when the subject was discipline and the penalty was severe.
This was Sisterland. They ruled everything, from the length of your hair to the kind of shoes you wore.
I still remember with some righteous indignation the day I was called on the carpet — well, the linoleum — in the classroom and made to remove my brand-new pair of penny loafers, which were very much in vogue around the time Every Mother’s Son released “Come on Down to My Boat, Baby.”
Again, Google it. You won’t be sorry.
“Michael,” the nun in charge of things said, “you cannot wear those, well, shoes to school. They are forbidden.”
Of course I knew that. That was part of the reason I had Mom and Dad buy them for me.
“Give me one reason,” I said, “besides that they don’t have laces.”
That put an end to that. Sometimes, you have to stand tall in whatever shoes you’re wearing and say to authority figures, “You’re wrong.”
Most of the time I’ve found that bullies are mostly cowards. They hide behind titles and rule by intimidation, but at heart they’re just foolish, little people, pumped up on boss-juice and waiting to crumble at the slightest sign of resistance.
That doesn’t mean, however, that they’re not dangerous.
“Well,” the nun-in-chief said after I’d clenched my toes and hung onto my penny loafers, “then there’s the matter of your hair.”
“What about it, sister?” I asked.
“It’s longer than the regulations allow,” she said. “But you know that, too, don’t you?”
I have to admit. She had me there. Few things in life are worse than getting caught in your own manipulation of the system. Makes a guy feel stupid.
“So you want me to get it cut, right sister?” I asked, all contrite.
“By tomorrow, mister,” she said, hiking up her drapery of a habit and waddling away.
That evening my father cut my hair, using extreme prejudice. Since then I’ve had this thing about haircuts. I don’t like them. I dread them. I try to avoid them. But one thing I’ve learned since I was in the seventh grade: I only let women do it.
Oh, there have been exceptions, but not many, and when I find someone who understands my phobia and cares enough to let me be me, I treasure her.
When I left home for the American South at the turn of the century, I said goodbye to Robyn, who had been my haircut savior for nearly 20 years. She understood me better than I sometimes understood myself, and I actually looked forward to those twice-a-year sessions when she was in charge of how I looked.
She had a way of putting me at ease, of telling me that I could trust her. Over the years I got to know, not only her, but her husband, who has become my go-to-friend when I get home, and their two daughters, whose lives I care about deeply.
Well, Robyn died a few years ago, and her loss hurts to this day. And even though she’ll never be replaced, I think she’d like the woman who’s cut my hair for the last five years or so.
Neither one of them wanted me to be unhappy, and in this sometimes nasty world, that means a lot more to me than just looking good.
Mike Dewey can be emailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. He invites you to join the fun on his Facebook page.