I have been told hundreds of times to stop fiddling with my hair, either combing or trimming it or just plain worried about how it looked. This obsession began back when I was in Grade 2.
The school year had barely gotten underway when teachers realized that hair-lice was spreading around the school. I got lice too. I brought the teacher’s note home to a horrified mother to read. Within minutes she had my not so concerned father take me to the barber shop located above Blackwell’s Grocery Store.
As we trudged up the creaking back stairs, I heard a few man laughing. It seemed like it might be a bit of a hangout. The barber Mr. Fynn, had me sit on a board he placed across the arms of the chair. He asked what style of cut I wanted. At that moment, someone said, “Cut it all off.” Thinking it was my father that said it, he did so.
Now I was grief-stricken, bawling all the way home (one block). My mother didn’t react kindly to my dismay and ordered my father to take me fishing the next day rather than me going to school.
Then the weekend passed and I had to face the reality of school with no hair. It was only September but I wore a black leather winter cap with lugs to disguise my indignity. Now seated in class, my teacher Ms. Menear told me to remove my cap. Only on her third command did I give in. The classroom broke out in laughter. I was so embarrassed but couldn’t do anything. The teasing kept on for a few days then it drifted onto other kids for varied reasons.
The trauma of losing my hair was always with me, amplified by another misadventure when I was around 10. I was getting a cut from Paddy Burke, a barber who worked from his house. It was a Saturday afternoon. The power went out before he was finished. He generally cut from the left ear to the right one. He had the left side and half the back done. He asked me to come on Monday so he could finish it up.
By high school I discovered brylcreem and duck tails. Over the years I always had my hair in fashion for length, which was longer in the 70’s and 80’s than the following years.
While living in Toronto, I had my hair cut regularly at a barber shop at a Sears department store. One haircut was shorter on one side than the other. I was quite perturbed but in 7 days as they say, a bad cut can look like a good one. When I went back for my next trim at Sears, the same barber was there. I described about what he had done wrong the last time.
He freaked out and shouted, “I am not a butcher.” Butcher must have been a grave insult in that industry. Rather than leave I feigned braveness and sat in his barber chair, all the time worried about something else getting cut. The haircut was fine and there were no more problems after that.
A few years later I really splurged at a high-end hair-cutting establishment. I went for a $33 haircut instead of the usual $12. It included a most enjoyable tingling head massage by a spirited young lady. I was on cloud nine until a few hours later when I realized I didn’t look any better than I did after my usual cut. One time was enough.
There was one period where I grew a mustache and a few weeks later I let my sister-in-law talk me into a hair perm. It did not suit me at all. Especially at work, the guys teased me unmercifully for weeks. That was one time only as well.
Then in 2019 prior to Covid, my son and I flew to Vancouver for a short vacation. He surprized me with appointments for us to get a hot shave at this special shop.
One hundred dollars a pop but if you ever had one you would appreciate the whole experience that lasted a full hour. The care, pampering and pleasure of that shave will never be forgotten.
I still have most of my hair for now but will it last until the end?
