My father passed away last year in October.  As a child of the 1950’s and 1960’s with 6 siblings you can imagine the stories and reminiscing that went on during the week’s worth of activities that brought us all together to celebrate our Dad’s life.  Growing up in Long Beach, California it never seemed we lacked for the necessities but luxuries, like haircuts in a barbershop, were rare with the financial demands that a family of 9 creates.

My Dad would assemble me and my 2 brothers in the garage every other Saturday with his electric clippers to administer the type of haircut one gets when they lose a bet or agrees to have their locks shorn in the name of charity.  The one point of differentiation between the 3 haircuts was that Dad always left my younger brother Bobby with an inch long strip of fringe covering the very top of his forehead as what can only be described as bangs.  At the time, I thought it was to help my mother identify him among the 7 of us kids but looking back on it I believe Dad thought that would make him tougher.  Given the level of abuse Bobby took from the rest of the pre-teens in our neighborhood over his “do” I believe my father was on to something.

If we wanted a different haircut, well, we needed to learn how to finance it.  When I was old enough to understand that the other half of the population that was not of my same sex (and not one of my 4 sisters) were worthy of my attention I reckoned it was worth $4 of my paper route money each fortnight  to allow the barber next to the Rexall drugstore to perform his artistry on my burgeoning locks. Another buck or so for Palmolive Hair Cream or ButchWax gave me the confidence I needed to be able to stand against the brick wall lining our high school gymnasium to watch the girls from our educational establishment dance together on Friday nights after the football games.

One marriage later, I purchased a “blow dryer” which allowed me to shape my rather substantial head of hair into various styles as I aged, each of which required a minimum of a half can of hairspray to hold in place.  By my 30’s I think I was spending upwards of $35 for my haircuts which were no longer provided by a barber but now a “stylist”.  I got pretty good at the home styling part until I started to notice that the amount of hair I was attempting to tease seemed to be progressively less and less and increasing amounts remained in my brush after the daily grooming routine was finished.  Once I eliminated the possibility that using too hot of a setting on my blow dryer was causing the reduction in volume I started reconfiguring the remaining product of my follicles in the most efficient way possible but never to the level of Donald Trump.  It worked well for years.

In 1998 I underwent a course of chemotherapy for Lymphoma and the predicted hair loss was acute.  By the end of the 2nd of 6 administrations of the “CHOP” regimen I did not have a hair anywhere.  Sympathetic friends and healthcare providers cheerfully reminded me that post-chemo hair comes back darker, thicker and even in the case of my string straight hair there was a chance it would have some curl.  Truthfully, I secretly loved the freedom of not having to deal with hair during the chemo intake period, especially since I was spending considerable time with my head firmly planted in the toilet bowl.  Nonetheless, once I completed the 6 month curative process I was eager to see just how dark, thick and curly my new mop would be.

What a load of bullcrap that turned out to be!  The regrowth post-chemotherapy stopped at the level of a quintessential Franciscan Monk’s hairline.  The dream of a screen test identifying me as the next leading man in a Hollywood Blockbuster was replaced by the reality that the only part for which I could ever be cast would be riding a burro with rosary beads draped around my neck trailing after Antonio Banderas in some godforsaken Mexican desert.

The really lousy part of it all, though, is that in spite of my inability to generate hair growth on the top of my head where it belongs, biology apparently dictates that the hair needs to get out somewhere.  I recall a few years ago my granddaughter, Sydney, then 5 or 6 years of age sitting on my lap when I recognized the look of fear and utter disgust in her eyes.  “Papa, what’s wrong with your ears???”  She shrieked loud enough for Elvis to hear, wherever he is,  “OOOHHHH, its HAIR!!!” she warned anyone within earshot.  Once the crimson color left my face I deposited her on the floor and headed to the bathroom to see just exactly what frightened her so much.  Donning my reading glasses and with as much light as I could artificially create I looked at my ears in my wife’s magnified make up mirror.  What I saw would have brought weaker men to their knees.  Apparently my post-chemo hair recovery had consolidated itself in the edges and crevices of my ears in multicolored sprouts that had the consistency of 10 gauge electrical wire and grew in no discernible pattern.  I knew I needed to take action if for no other reason than to save my other grandchildren from the psychological trauma I had already caused my eldest.

I immediately turned to the Internet:  I found recommended methods for trimming the unwanted hair; ways to melt it away, wax it off and chemically remove it.  I learned that hair inside the ear canal actually has a useful purpose and must be dealt with more sensitively than the hirsute manifestation everywhere else on the half circles that stick out from the sides of my head.  I learned that electrolysis has a spotty record with stubborn ear hair and, by the way can, only be used on the outer ear in any event.  Never had I imagined that my problem seemed to be shared by nearly every man (and more than a few women) over the age of 39.  I felt only a little less embarrassed.

My visits to the barber shop these days to see Mike the Barber for my $15 Reverse fade with a 1 1/2, Zero on top are spent mostly with my barber using various implements to eradicate as much of the unruly hair growth that has since evolved from my ears to include an invasion of my eyebrows where 4 to 5 inch silver sprouts spring up literally overnight.  I find he does a far better job at controlling the affliction than I with my wife’s makeup mirror and the collection of implements I’ve acquired over the years.  Between visits, I do my best to control the ever present offenders with regular assists from Google …..