At 67, I am okay with haircuts. That has not always been the case. Fifty years ago, as a high school senior, I swore off haircuts.
I suppose the story really starts back when I was a Fifth Grader and I asked Leroy the barber to give me a haircut like The Beatles. He chuckled and explained that was not something he could do that day. “You need some hair, first.” Leroy made a painful point. Sporting a crew cut, I did not give Leroy much to work with.
In the years that followed, I managed to convince my mother and stepfather to allow my hair to grow a bit longer. In middle school, I ended up with bangs and enough hair to part on one side. By high school, that part had moved to the middle and hair was hanging down the sides enough to reach some reasonable level of “cool” in my teen brain.
Finally, when I was a 17-year-old senior, I went in for my last haircut for a long time. A really long time. It was January 1972 and I declared that I was not getting another haircut. I said stuff like that back then.
By the time high school graduation arrived, my hair just barely reached my shoulders. There is a photograph of me from graduation that documents my hair-raising achievement at that point. I am standing at a podium speaking at the ceremony with a stupid mortar board cap perched atop my hair. I was on my way to teenaged freedom (as soon as I lost that weird cap).
By the time I arrived at college a few months later, I fit right in with many other young men who wore their hair to their shoulders and longer. It was 1972 and long hair, beards and mustaches were routinely seen at East Texas State University (now Texas A&M Commerce). I should mention here that I also started a mustache around that time.
My roommate, Milton, was impressed with my hair. His father strictly forbid Milton growing out his hair as long as he was putting up the cash to send Milton to college. Somewhere along the line, Milton took a big comb of mine home to show his sister. I suppose it was some sort of evidence to back up his stories about my hair.
In January 1973, a year after I swore off haircuts, I drove Milton home to nearby Dallas to meet that sister. Her name is Candace. That weekend, I got a girlfriend and my comb back. I still have her, but the comb has gone missing again.
When Candace and I attended her high school senior prom that spring, our hair was, basically, the same length. We have the photographs to prove it. My hair hangs down across the front of my dark purple tuxedo in the photographs. I have never been able to duplicate that awesome look again.
In June 1973, 18 months after I swore off haircuts, I visited a barber shop for a trim. I brought it back to my shoulders, about how it looked when I graduated from high school a year earlier.
For several more years, I kept my hair long, although it never returned to the length it had reached by the summer of 1973. These days, I get my hair cut about once a month. The same person has been cutting my hair for nearly 30 years. Her name is Lisa. She and Candace do not support any idea I might have of going long again. I suggested it, but they laughed.
I am happy to say I still have my hair and the blonde-haired girl who was so impressed by my hair and me.
It's KPC Again 