Finally, taking care of a neglected necessity
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- April 27, 2024
- 270
The last time I got a haircut, I had no idea the next one would be in my hometown, so you’ll understand just how long ago it was.
Halloween had just passed, and it wasn’t yet Thanksgiving, which aligned nicely with my three-times-year coastal Carolina routine.
Then everything changed, and by that, I mean everything.
Faithful readers may recall my wife and I arrived in early January, not exactly primo timing when it comes to the weather, and that since then, our lives have taken on an entirely new rhythm.
To lift a line from Richard Nixon, who used to be the worst president in American history, let me make this perfectly clear: My laser-focused wife has adapted to our relocation and its attendant assimilation much more gracefully and efficiently than I have, and though I want to be more like her, I’ve been woefully delinquent when it comes to even the most mundane and simplistic chores.
Boxes in the basement bear mute witness to my comparative sloth even as I bemoan the fact I haven’t been able to locate my extensive collection of “Dark Shadows” VCR tapes or my autographed copy of Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.”
And somewhere in this subterranean refuge where so much of my stuff remains unpacked, I know there’s a treasure trove of CDs sent to me by readers over the years, including rare Alex Chilton tracks.
Which explains (sort of) why it’s taken me so long to get a haircut.
In my defense — and it’s an admittedly weak one — I’ve always had issues with sitting down and having someone alter my appearance.
It’s not vanity, though, since that would imply I was a handsome man, which I’m not, despite my wife’s protestations to the contrary.
I’m just a tall, skinny, geeky guy whose hair grows and grows as if it was a game I could win when, in actual matter of fact, it’s just a genetic anomaly, like being right-handed or a Democrat.
Dad always had a healthy head of silver hair, even into his 80s, and it looked great, but he had a practical side that caused him to learn how to cut it himself. I’m not sure how my mother liked that, but she did draw the line when he decided my skull was next up.
“No,” she said after viewing the rather uneven results of his first — and only — effort to master the tonsorial arts. “No … no … no.”
When I was old enough to make that kind of decision on my own, I tended to trust women almost exclusively when it came to cutting my hair. It wasn’t sexism, necessarily, and there was one exception.
I remember waking up one morning in Carolina and dedicating myself to the promise I would not drive home until I’d taken care of the task of finding someone who could do the job that day.
It had been months and months since my last visit to a professional, and I had the appearance of a refugee from Woodstock, even down to the ponytail I had begun sporting since accepting a position with the newspaper in town, and I was aware of how hippieish I looked.
But summer was on the horizon, and I wanted a beach cut, so I went from strip mall to outlet plaza, looking for a likely candidate.
When I first saw him, I took him for a customer waiting his turn, grabbing a quick smoke before keeping his appointment. Turned out, though, he was a qualified professional, and we got along famously for several years. Then he developed a nasty allergy to some newfangled chemical dye the ladies liked, so he quit, leaving me and my hair — which thrived on the beach — stranded.
From that point until the time we left, there was a string of women who, once they got used to my obvious nervousness and rather particular preferences, filled the bill quite well, always polite and, even better, able to deal with my lengthy absences between visits.
“There he is,” my favorite hair-cutting lady would say as I walked in. “Must be almost summer. Sit down and shut up. I’ve got this.”
That kind of built-in confidence has always appealed to me, the way a take-charge woman can put me at ease, sensing all I really wanted was to not worry about how I’d look afterward.
Which brings us back to what happened the other morning and how truly happy I am to have finally taken care of something I should have dealt with weeks ago. I’ve been stuck in a rut of ennui, greeting each new chilly and overcast day with a shudder of familiar acceptance, knowing I had to get motivated to jump-start my life again, realizing time (and life) was slipping by.
Will a simple thing like an efficient hair cut, accomplished by a talented young lady, help me to get off my butt and start unpacking those boxes that remain taped up and silent in my basement room?
Chronic inertia isn’t a medical term, as far as I know, but that’s the best way to describe what’s been ailing me for the last few months.
Every time I wake up with a renewed sense of purpose, wanting to check things off my to-do list that I drag around like Jacob Marley’s jangling chain of regrets, I seem to get sidetracked or discouraged, thinking the job at hand is just too much for me.
That changes now, even as I hear Mom say, “Yes … yes … yes.”
Besides, I miss my Beatles cards. Gotta be down here somewhere.
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to find him on Facebook, where it doesn’t matter when you last had a haircut.