Finally, you really wanted to see a real picture of Pappy.
Well, here it is! A picture of me and my grandson. Nice resemblance, eh? Isn’t bald beautiful? I’m so proud of my grandson for wanting to look like me.
However, he’s a lot cuter from the front. I actually started going bald when I was 20 something. My grandfather on my mother’s side was bald so I expected the worse. Thank heaven’s I kept some of my hair until I met my wife. Although Mammy claims she married me because I was the only boy on campus during the deer hunt (a manly big event where I came from).
After 5 years of marriage, my hair was mostly gone. We moved to rural Wyoming for my job and I went to the only barber in town. I know his genealogy went back to Chief Geronomo because he did a nice scalp job on me. After that I insisted that Mammy cut my hair which she has been doing every since. It kept getting thinner and thinner but I managed to cover up most of the bald spot by combing it over the top. To do this, you have to let one side grow long and then comb it over the bald spot so it meets the other side. It’s better than a wig that looks fake but not much better. It’s kind of the Bob Newhart look.
Well, it kept getting thinner and thinner and one day when Mammy was cutting it she said, “This is ridiculous…..I just going to whack it off.” It was quite a shock to me because because by now it was long enough for a fair maiden to climb down from the castle tower. Well, being the good husband that I am and not wanting to go back to the barber in our town I said, “Okay, go for it”. She whacked it off! I had grown to admire bald people. For example, my brother is bald and has been a great example for me. However, he went bald in a more sophisticated manner than I did. His baldness started at the front and slowing worked its way back. This is the right way to go bald. My baldness started at the middle top and worked it way out.
This is called the donut hole effect and makes you look rather dorky until it reaches its final destination. Through all of this I’ve learned to admire more bald people as well…..like Churchill, Ben Franklin (I was born on his birthday), Homer Simpson, and others. Over the years I have developed quite an arsenal of anti-bald jokes. My favorite rebuttal is “grass goes well on a manure pile”. One time I had to speak in church and I could see my wife passing her hand over her head signaling to me my hair was messed up. I simply told the congregation that my wife was signaling to me that my hair was out of place and asked her which hair it was. There are advantages and disadvantages to being bald. Do you realize how much time is wasted in combing your hair? I beg your pardon….its not called hair combing but hair styling. If that time was taken to read books to our kids and grand kids, think how much better off they would be. The only disadvantage to that is the whole world would look like Phyllis Diller which would be pretty scary. I’m proud of the fact that I can style my hair in less than 15 seconds, saving all that time to do more productive things (like writing this crazy blog post). The other advantage is that you don’t get sawdust in your hair when you work in your woodshop.
You can just run a wet wash cloth over your head. The only other thing that bothers me is my head runs like a faucet when I exert myself (which I try not to do very often). That makes it tough on hats especially when you like to collect them (a subject for another blog) and it’s no fun getting sweat in your eyes. All and all, being bald is OK. Mostly, it helps me look more like a grandpa and I really like being a grandpa.
