Hair today, but gone before you know it

The years are flying by and I’ve been bitten by the nostalgia bug.

I dug out the old photo albums and was whisked back to the ’70s by a picture of my oldest son, decked out for the prom.

He was sporting a powder blue polyester tux (with matching bow tie and cummerbund, of course), gleaming white patent leather shoes and a really bountiful head of hair.

I mean a lot of hair. Not just on his head, either. This kid had the hairiest sideburns since Elvis, and not as neatly trimmed either.

After a good laugh and a bit of a cry (his eldest daughter is just finishing her first year of college!), I got to thinking about hair and how it affects our impressions of people.

Never in a million years would I have imagined that bald would be considered beautiful. John Reese, my late husband and father of my children, had a completely bald, shiny pate -- the result of genetics and not fashion.

My girlfriend and her little boy, about 3, came to visit. The kid loved John who would sit on the piano bench with him and “play’’ the piano. One time, the tike stood up on the bench, rubbed John’s head and said with wonder, “You haven’t got any hair!”

Laughing, John replied, “You’re right, I sure don’t.’’

The boy was silent for a moment and then pronounced, “Well, you should have Niki take you to the grocery store and buy you some!’’

We adults dissolved into laughter, but the kid was serious. Then, we started figuring out where in the supermarket would hair fit in. Finally, we picked the produce department, figuring that a fuzzy coconut was as close to a wig as you were going to find there.

That said, hair has history. During the ’60-s, long and shaggy was supposed to show independence, freethinking and a revolutionary bent. Too often, these admirable qualities were besmirched by illegal substances, which simply left the hairy ones mentally bent.

Hair has often been considered a woman’s crowning glory. Men throughout the ages have fantasized about beauty, with a luxurious head of hair fanning out on a pillow.

Some cultures took this sexy hair very seriously and developed styles to hide the offending hair. Many Muslim women cover not only their hair, but their complete bodies. Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish women shave their heads upon marriage, so as not to gain attention of men other than their husbands. It is my understanding that these women also wear a sheitel or wig, some of which are gorgeous. According to info on Google, this has been a relatively late development, one observed in exceptionally traditional circles. Go figure!

When our three sons were small, summer vacation started off with John giving them all a “baldy bean’’ haircut. It was cool; they kinda looked like their dad, and none of them minded. Until they went back to school and/or discovered girls. Then, that style joined mutton chops and elaborate tiered hairdos and other hairy history. Only the youngest son, in the Army for more than 20 years, still gets a “baldy bean.’’ I think they call it a “high and tight,’’ though.

I’m a hairdresser's worse nightmare. I’ve been wearing virtually the same haircut for a few decades. Every few months I get a tight, curly perm and then never have to fool with my hair. There have been times when I’ve been tempted and actually allowed my hair to grow a couple of inches and be fluffed up with a dryer and then curled loosely with some other apparatus of torture.

It never sticks and I’m back to what the New Yorker calls my “Betsy Wetsy’’ haircut. And if you can remember that doll, you are old enough to know just what I'm talking about.

My late father was nuts about his grandchildren and then great grandchildren. Starting with his own kids, he let us put his hair up in rollers. As the generations came, his hair went until he had what he called a “bagel cut,’’ and another tradition bit the dust.

As for the New Yorker, he had some hair when we married, and later nurtured a comb-over until his daughter and I finally got him in a weak moment and he had a haircut.

Didn’t bother me a bit. After all, watching that gorgeous football player who’s on “Dancing with the Stars’’ and is bald as a billiard ball -- well, he’s living proof that bald is, indeed, beautiful.

Niki Reese Eschen can be reached at stiki@verizon.net.