The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m sitting in the local barbershop that just opened up in town humming that song ‘Almost Cut My Hair’, but apparently I’m not going to let my freak flag fly even one more day. I got mixed feelings. My hair was down to my shoulders, first time since back in about 1980 when I moved out here and drove school bus for the little felons I transported. Don’t ask me why but I got this wild hair to let it grow, see if it brought back hippie memories.

It didn’t. Just an old geezer growing his hair long in the modern era of ‘50’s crewcuts, some kind of rebel statement, not sure for who. Whom. Whatever. Shampoo bill hitting the ceiling and drying time about two days. Longer hair than the mizzus, probably confusing sexual identities, why not?

The two guyz in front of me look like they get a trim about every two weeks. My last haircut was two years ago. Probably saved me about $400. Or quite a few gallons worth of shampoo. Without possessing any superhuman strength, I still seem to have a Sampson/Delilah complex. But growing my hair long didn’t make me any stronger either. Warmer in winter, about all.

Most of my adult life, a haircut meant I was on my way to some kind of interview. Jobs, art committees, anything where I worried I might lessen my odds looking like a refugee from the 60’s. As I got older and greyer in the beard, I figured the length of my hair was the least of my worries, considering I showed up in jeans, goodwill shirts and a battered cowboy hat so soiled I might have been an Okie lost in the exodus from the Dust Bowl. Artist chic, I liked to tell myself. Right.

The thing about haircuts is that invariably I regret getting them. The upside is that hair tends to grow back, not like an irreversible decision. Another two or three years, I’ll probably be back here in the chair. Maybe for a trim….

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