Hair Part Deux

Remember a few days ago when I had a hair issue with my barber?  Well, I took myself down to my barber (Dino) early yesterday morning.  He was surprised to see me again so soon after my haircut of last week.  He said "Another haircut?"  I said "No, I'm here to get more cut off the right side of my head."


Dino scrunched his nose like he smelled a skunk had just walked into his barber shop and said "Whatsa matter?"  Now here is where I had to tread very, very carefully.  One does not want to offend one's barber, especially if he is one of few remaining old school Italian-American barbers who specialize in giving old men like moi good haircuts that old men like moi can never get from the women "stylists" in those overpriced "salons."  You know why they call them "stylists" don't you?  That way they can charge you three times the price of a standard barber and cut your hair so little that you have to go back in two weeks for another "styling."  But I digress.


Yesterday I was in dangerous territory when I went back to my barber for a fix up of my choppy haircut.  There was no point in pissing him off.  I know what happened when he screwed up my hair.  He was cutting it when one of his former female employees came in and was trying to persuade him to join her at her new gig at her STYLIST salon!  OH NO!  So Dino was talking to her, defending all his reasons for staying in his barber shop at the back of the Elements Beauty Supply store in the Safeway Shopping Center in Rehoboth.  All the while he's talking to her he's chopping away at my hair.  I was in a hurry and I certainly didn't want to engage her in conversation as a potential new customer so when Dino whipped off the hair collecting apron he had around my neck, I paid him and sprinted out of his barber shop.  Under normal circumstances I would have looked in the mirror to check my haircut as I always do.  But today I just wanted to get out of there and away from that woman (no offense to any female fans of this blog.)


I told Dino "I need a little cut off here" as I motioned to the upper right side of my hair where there was major Bed Hair sticking out.  He scrunched up his nose again and said "Oh yeah."  He said "I'm sorry."  I told him "No, no.  It's my fault.  You asked me 'how do you like it?' and I said 'Okay'.  It's my fault."  Dino's scrunched up nose returned back to normal and I hopped up in his chair.  I quickly changed the subject by asking him when he was visiting his family for Christmas.  He said "I leave tomorrow to visit my son and his family."  Thank goodness.  I got through the Barber Minefield.  He wasn't pissed off.  I was getting my bad haircut fixed while at the same time allowing Dino to maintain his self-respect.

Wasn't this scenario one of the episodes of "Seinfeld?"


Hey, take a look!  What do you think?  Nice, huh?

Hair

The right sider of my noggin - so wrong - too much hair - uneven

Last week I got a haircut.  


Last week I got a bad haircut.


I didn't realize it until I got home and washed my hair.


The right side of my head has about three inches more hair than the left side.  What could my barber be thinking?  What was I thinking?  Do I have to check my haircut every time I leave?  Apparently I do.


I've been using the same barber for about four years.  He is an old Italian barber.  Most of my life I've been using Italian barbers.  They are a dying breed.  I don't go to stylists.  I don't need to pay a woman $45 to wash my hair and give it a half assed trim and then need a haircut again the next week.  I did that once.  All I got was the boobs hanging in my face when she washed my hair.


No, I'll take the manly haircuts that the old Italian barbers serve up.  As I said, they are literally a dying breed.  I'm hoping my 80 year old barber Dino outlives me because if he doesn't, I'm screwed.  


I've had women cut my hair.  I never got a good butch haircut from a woman.  I'm not being sexiest here, I just never, never have gotten a good haircut from a woman.  


I don't know what was on Dino's mind last week but this lopsided haircut just won't do.  I was going to wait out my haircut and live it until I go back to him for my regular six week haircut.  I can't do it though.  I'm waking up in the morning with a hair drift on the right side of my head.  I look like a dark haired Conan O'Brien.

The left side of Noggin Ron - the way it should be - I'm lopsided

Nope, tomorrow I get this fixed.  

The Beard is Back

The Beard this morning at 8 am (big schnooz and all) 

A few weeks ago a friend of mine suggested that I shave off my beard.  He said it would make me look younger.

I shaved off my beard.  I did not look younger.  I looked every day (and then some) of my 68 years.

The suggestion was made because I have a white beard.  I no longer had the luxurious dark brown beard that I had when I first started to grow a beard in 1972.

1980 - Phillies World Series celebration in center city Philadelphia

Twice before I have shaved off my beard only to be confronted with a face that I did not like.  I could not imagine spending the rest of my days looking at that face in the mirror during my daily shave.  Oh no.  Not that face.  Gravity had taken its toll.  I had a saggy face. I had jowls.

White first began appearing in my beard twenty years ago.  A white whisker here, a white whisker there.  I wasn't alarmed because the "little bit o'gray" gave me a distinguished look.  However, all too soon my whole chin was covered in white whiskers hairs.  My chin had disappeared.

The White Chin appears - 1986

I am fortunate that I have an angular face with high cheekbones.  A well trimmed, dark beard completes my look.  To those of you who think I am too narcissistic, get over it.  I don't apologize for caring about my appearance.  I don't apologize for having a healthy self-esteem.  After having spend the formative years of my youth constantly berated by my father for being "stupid looking", I am thankful that I got away from home at an early age (joined the Army) and came to the realization that I wasn't any "stupider looking" than many of my fellow soldiers.

My Pop 1991 - Tough Love

Self image and self esteem is so important to mental health.  There is that fine line between self esteem and conceit.  I am not conceited.  I know the difference.  I know conceited people.  I know good-looking conceited people and I know not so good-looking conceited people.  I also know people who have a healthy self-esteem.  I notice that those people who have a healthy self-esteem aren't necessarily good-looking in the Hollywood measure but they are very attractive none-the less because of their healthy self-esteem.  I've also noticed that the so called good-looking conceited people aren't so attractive once you get to know them and their conceit.  They are very unattractive.


Having said all that, I look better with a beard.  I look even better when I color my beard.  Now where did I put my Just For Men?

By the way Pop, I'm still "stupid looking" but a cute stupid looking.

November 9, 1976 (my birthday) Stupid looking me with my stupid looking hat

The Bearded One

July 9, 2010 - with the beard

The beard is back!

A week ago I took the advice of a friend of mine and shaved off my beard.  My beard is almost all white.  Everyone was telling me I looked like an old man with the white beard.  Well, uh.....I am an old man.  I will be 69 years old this November.  There is no getting around that fact.  But, if I can shave a few years off of my visage why not.  What's good enough for Joan Rivers is certainly good enough for me.

So I shaved it off.  I didn't like what was hidden beneath my beard for the past thirty or so years.  There was an OLD MAN with jowls (JOWLS!) beneath that beard.  Oh no, this would do at all.

June 28, 2010 - without the beard

No I was a pale faced white OLD MAN.  I noticed that people didn't seem to pay as much attention to me. I don't know if this was my imagination for what was really happening.  I suspect it was a little bit of both.

So I decided to grow it back.  It doesn't take me long to grow a beard.  I can get a good growth in seven to ten days.  The only thing is that my beard comes in almost all white.  I can count the dark brown whiskers. There just aren't that many folks.  My mustache is still dark brown with a few white hairs but the beard on my chin?  All white baby.  ALL WHITE.

No, this wouldn't do at all.  Plus, I am getting hounded daily by my partner to grow my beard back and color it.  He says my beard takes years off of my face.  Plus, my dark beard brings out the blue in my eyes in addition to framing my narrow face.   Without a beard or a white beard, my face seems to fade in the background.

Yesterday I noticed that I had enough stubble to color it.  I got out my Just For Men and applied the medium dark brown (Just For Men is very good with the subtle shades) and applied it to my newly grown beard.  Viola!  The Old Ron (or Young Ron) is back!

Sure, I have more wrinkles (living baby, living) and less hair that I did 20 or 30 years ago but I still have the same panache with my dark beard now that I had back in my heyday.

So I go into work last night at the hotel with my new beard.  My new look was immediately noticed by my boss and co-workers.  He asked me if I colored my beard.  I told him that I "grew a new one."  He said "Uh huh.  It looks like you used Just For Men."  He had me.  My boss is only 30 years old and he has a reddish brown beard with nary a gray hair.  Just wait until his beard turns and it will.

I checked in my first guests.  I noticed that they took more notice of me unlike the guests I checked in the night before.  Those guests hardly paid attention to me.  that was because with my white stubble of a beard I was fading in the background.  Not now, I was out there with my restored Dark and Mysterious Look.  It felt good.

My surprised "Miss Richmond 1980" look (it's an inside joke) 

The beard stays.  That reminds me, I have to pick up some more Just For Men the next time I go to Walmart.