By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Hair! I’ve had a strange and wonderful relationship with it. My hair is wonderful, but I have this strange internal conflict about its proper length.
Early on I was a tow head, the only strawberry blonde in the immediate family. Moreover, from some undefined genetic pool, I inherited thick, wavy hair. When I was younger, sweet old ladies I’d never met would rush up to me, touch my hair, and rave about how beautiful it was.
I was mortified. They meant well, but the last thing a 6 or 7 year old boy wants is hair admiration, especially from nice old women. As a result, for many childhood years, I wore a buzz cut.
This worked fine for a time. My father had a fine electric razor, used it well, and so my haircuts were free. As a bonus, older generation females were not drawn to the butch look. My years of tress-free bliss ended, however, thanks to the Viet Nam war and the social changes of the 1960s.
My father, an active Air Force non-commissioned officer, was called away to extended duty in Saigon. In his absence, my mother tried to cut my hair. Her experience in this field was limited to leg shaving, sans electricity. The skillset did not translate well. Soon my poor head showed clear signs of razor burn, and I dreaded homemade haircuts.
Of course, in the 1960s, longer hair was groovy. My older sisters loved “cute” men with flowing hair…Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, and even Davy Jones of the Monkees. I observed this developing trend, and evolved along with it.
At about the same time, I heard a music group “The Cowsills“ perform a song with the simple title of “Hair” (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt_yKPNORLM).
The lyrics leaped out at me from the radio: “Gimme a head with hair, long, beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen…”
I was smitten. The emerging and very cool coiffing style, juxtaposed with my potent fear of Mom holding a razor, spelled the end of my days of home cuts. I grew long hair and never looked back…at least not for a while.
There were school dress codes, professional job considerations, and spousal preferences to be considered and managed. As my hair has turned from boyhood blonde to auburn brown to its current shades of gray, there has been one constant. I am of two minds about my hair—one wants it long, but the other agrees it should be short.
Two professionals (and they are not therapists!) have helped me navigate between these hair-splitting personality traits. The first was Ralph the barber—Ralph Dayton, from the Cellar Barbers, an institution in Ogden, Utah for almost 60 years (see: Retiring Ogden barbers are anything-but.) When I started to visit Ralph, his shop was in the basement of a men’s clothing store called “Fred M. Nye,” located on old Washington Boulevard. They had a barber pole, dark wood with brass fixtures, and leather chairs.
Ralph was the perfect barber for me, for several reasons. His shop was not like the hair places my mother and sister patronized, i.e. it was not too salon-ish. I was not getting my hair “done” nor did I have a “hairdo.” Ralph never bugged me to cut it too short, nor did he ever say or imply that I should partake of his fine services more often than my standard 3 or 4 visits per year.
He also was a great conversationalist. You can discuss pretty much anything with a good barber or bartender. And Ralph had this great suction vacuum device he would use at the end of each session to pull off loose, excess cut hair. Rarely have I felt so relaxed as when I had my head vacuumed at the Cellar Barbers.
When I started working at my law firm in Salt Lake City in the late 1980s, I needed a local barber. My wife Vicki suggested her friend Lisa Monson, a small business woman who owns Shear Excellence. She has cut my hair for the last 30 years.
I hesitated to go to Lisa at first—after all she runs a “salon,”—but I gave her an audition. She satisfied my key criteria: (1) nice person who is easy to chat with; (2) good with scissors, and (3) not troubled by rare visits from people who are conflicted about being sheared. She does not have the vacuum device like Ralph, but no one is perfect, and she makes up for it with hot water hair washes before each cut.
I have a lot of friends and business colleagues who get their hair cut every other week or so. They never look like their hair grows or that they ever get a haircut. I like, and in many cases love, these people, but I just am not that man. Everyone can tell when my hair is cut, because I only do it when I have to do it.
Usually, “have to” means when my wife tells me it is time. She sometimes does so directly (and sweetly), but often makes the point indirectly, such as by calling me “Mr. Bouffant.” I agree reluctantly, but only seasonally, ergo the summer cut, the winter cut, etc.
Maybe this haircutting dilemma results from some sort of contemporary Samson complex. Maybe it’s the late 1960s still boiling in my blood. Maybe I yearn for (or fear) more compliments from little old ladies. Maybe it’s just because I am strange, but with wonderful hair.
Or perhaps, I still am that impressionable boy with a Cowsills song running through his head:
“Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for the buzzin’ bees
A nest for birds, there ain’t no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my…
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, oh
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair!”
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is writing a book about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah.
