I’ve always been vain about my hair.

When I was born, I was pretty much bald, but as a very young boy, I had bright, curly locks of almost white blonde hair.  My parents had also had bright blond hair as children, though by my birth, they had both had become brunette as they aged.

As with most children, I had a complete meltdown the first time I had my hair cut.  It probably wasn’t from losing my pretty hair, but from fear of being held down in a big chair by some big guy with sharp scissors and buzzing clippers.

Growing up, I would often not leave the house if I hadn’t showered and combed (and for a while, blow dried) my hair.  It was the 1970s and 1980s, and hair was a big deal—often literally a “big” deal.

At some point during college, my step-mother announced, “You’re losing your hair, you know.  You’d probably better enjoy it while it lasts.”  It was typical of her type of personal interaction.

I managed to deal with the growing “parking spaces” for years, but generally kept my hair long enough to comb.  It was growing finer, as well as thinner, so needed a bit more strategy to keep it looking right.  I switched the part to the right side, because it made my hair look fuller, and I kept it a bit longer so hair on one side would cover the parking space on the other.  It was decidedly NOT a comb-over. No, never that.  At work, there was a fairly senior-level employee whose comb-over went from his left ear all the way to his right. Not subtle, not fooling anyone, and the subject of some sad head shaking among the staff.  I swore that would never be me.

Then, one haircut, the stylist really messed up, and cut some of my hair much too short. He had to drop down to about a #6 on the clippers on my whole head to fix the problem, and I had my first “buzzcut” style ever.  It felt extreme and a bit awkward, but the response from people was huge.  It was such a departure from my usual look, that people seemed to be seeing my face as if they’d never noticed it before.  From then on, I kept going back to the buzz cut, gradually getting shorter and shorter until I was at about a #3 on the clippers and felt that any shorter might as well be shaved.

Unfortunately for my vanity, the “parking spaces” eventually turned into a “roundabout” — the pattern of thinning hair had progressed to leave a clump of hair in the center above my forehead with a mostly clear, bald zone around it.  Worse, one side of that clump of hair was thicker than the other.  Meaning, even with my hair buzzed, it looked like I had a one-inch lump of off-balance hair on my forehead.

I decreased the clippers to a #2, and eventually to the lowest setting before using just bare clippers. If I thought I looked bald before, this was new territory.

Vanity sucks.  But Vanity also gave me an option.

In the movie “Speed”, one of the characters talks about how to solve a hostage crisis by “shooting the hostage”—to get the innocent person out of the way so there is nothing in the way of taking out the kidnapper. I decided to metaphorically shoot the hostage of my own vanity.

I shaved my head.

Now, rather than being that “guy with the receding hairline,” I could now be “the guy with the shaved head.”  Much more manly.  Much more decisive.  Look at all the “tough guy” actors and athletes with shaved heads out there.  That would be my new look.  Vanity without a full head of hair.  Without hair at all, in fact.

I can only say this about the journey and my eventual, relatively permanent choice of solution: You will NEVER know how vain you truly are until you shave your head.  You’ll also never truly realize how much maintenance time and money we all spend — even men — on having a head of hair.  While I don’t always shave with a razor (which usually needs shaving at least every other day), I still keep my hair clipped as short as I can and buzz it about once a week, if I don’t shave it off completely.  Very low maintenance, and I can wake up from a nap and not look like I’ve been rolled in the subway.

It was a very liberating thing to do, and I realized after that—all along—it had been me who was the hostage.

Even as a youngster I wasn’t a big fan of formica. But, like so many kitchen tables in the 1960s, our family meals were served on a gray formica table. The formica looked to me like it was trying to be a modern art painting, even though I didn’t really know what modern art looked like back then. I just knew it looked fake somehow.  The tomato soup colored plastic chairs, however, were pretty. They weren’t trying to be anything but chairs. It was at this kitchen set that Mom served the first meals I remember.

Mom was a good cook and would later become a really good cook after traveling the world.  My dad probably barbecued every summer day of his life until he passed away at 82.  As a young couple my parents shared cooking chores for our family: Besides grilling, Dad cooked weekend breakfasts — usually pancakes and often bacon and eggs. In his fun made-up language for my sister and me, he called bacon “basin” and eggs were “egglets”.   The most frequent dinner was barbequed beef patties, corn on the cob, good old Campbell’s pork and beans and a relish dish – usually pickles and green onions.  Sitting in a booster seat on those plastic red chairs at dinner, I watched Mom dip her green onions in a bit of salt next to the beef patty on her plate. Of course, I tried it and liked it. It was the beginning of a lot of salty snacks down the road.

But the very best “meals” were the birthday cakes. Likely a neighbor or McCall’s magazine was the source of a recipe for using dolls in birthday cakes. Mom positioned a doll maybe 6″ tall or so in the center of a bundt cake and frosted the cake to look like a big hoop skirt. We loved it!  The hats on these dolls were works of art, and the tiered skirts were a little girl’s dream.  Again, the beginning of a lot of mouthwatering desserts…and somehow mixed with fashion! And beyond the cake, Mom decorated the house. Boy, did she decorate.

Looking back, those were wonderful years. The memories of breakfasts, dinners and parties around that kitchen table with my family are among my favorite. Even if it was a formica table, which is blessedly covered by a tablecloth in the attached photo of my sister’s 6th birthday party.

Hair has power.  My father knew that, which is why he shaved us skull-tight once a week, leaving him with the controlling interest.  Yet he was bald, which didn’t make sense.

Regardless, by third grade, the year I started hitting on women, he let us grow our hair out.  The power it gave me was … I have no idea.

What I do remember was that I was required to keep up with my end of the bargain–keeping it combed and neat and combed at all times–unless I wanted it shaved off again; and I couldn’t go back to that, not after making my grand entrance into the third grade classroom, hair combable and slicked back and looking groovy.

But I’ll tell you what, it was a lot of work.  And because I was a lazy boy (no other way to say it), I would comb it to perfection at night just before bed, then pull one of my mother’s old stocking hose over my head so when I woke the next morning I wouldn’t have to comb it.  Incidentally, after my parents would go to bed, I would also get dressed, shoes and all, so I wouldn’t have to dress in the morning, either.  All night, with an itchy head, I worried about my stocking cap falling off, and I was extremely uncomfortable with my Levis and shoes and long sleeve shirt on.  It took twenty minutes to turn over in bed; and when I did turn over, I had to get up immediately afterwards, worried that my stocking cap shifted a little, checking its position in the bathroom mirror.  Then, when I’d lay back down, I’d wonder again if my stocking cap had moved.  Long nights.  It reminded me when I used to wet the bed.

So I’d get up the next morning, my stocking cap would have undoubtedly shifted, and my hair would look like someone pressed an iron against my head in several places.  I’d have to wet it and re-comb it, and by the time I was done, it was more work than if I would have just gone to bed like a normal kid.  On top of that, my mother would make me take off all of my clothes because they would be all wrinkled.

“@$#% Blane!  What the hell is wrong with you?  Now I have to re-iron them and you’ll be late for school.  What the hell is wrong with you?”  I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, I’d say to myself.

It was about that time that I discovered it, the most important discovery in the 60’s–Dippity-Do setting gel, for women.  I saw the commercial, I listened to the  song, and two days later I spotted it in our bathroom medicine cabinet.  I was elated.  That morning, I unscrewed the cap, dug my whole hand into it, pulled out a gob double the size of silly putty, and worked it all through my hair.  I ran a comb through my hair, effortlessly, making a perfect part, every strand matching the one next to it.  I looked close to perfect.  The only uncomfortable part was the all the excess goop running down the back of my neck and down my back, but it dried up by the time I got to school.

The best part was yet to come.  Within an hour, my hair got hard as concrete, turning into a hair shell, a helmet.  If anyone tried messing it up, they’d probably get cut or bruised.  It got even better.  By lunch I would comb it out, leaving my hair soft, dry, and in perfect shape.  I would start out in the morning with a wet look, looking almost perfect, and my afternoon I would look even better.

When the season changed and the days started getting warmer, I discovered one of Dippity-Do’s defects.  When I started sweating, my hair would harden up again.  So when I came in for recess, half my hair started hardening (the part that got wet) while the other part stayed dry.  Since the wet spots were darker, my head looked kind of spotted.  Becky told everyone I had malaria.  Larry said it was because my head was growing.  I was a walking freak-of-nature.

Fortunately, I quickly learned that once it completely hardened again, I could just comb it out, bringing back that 100% dry look, bringing back me.