Changes In Attitude by Deke Cutter

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As I was getting ready to leave for school that Monday morning, my mother stopped me and said, "your grandpa arrives in two weeks, please get a haircut soon so that you don’t have your father threatening to drag you in to his barber at the last minute. You know how he gets before his dad arrives."

"Oh, mom, look how far we’ve brought dad from the days when he had me in a boy’s ‘short regular’. I’m 17 now, I know how to do this. I’ll get a bit of a trim the day before ‘pop-pop’ arrives and keep it combed behind my ears, real nerdy, the way dad likes. and it will be fine."

"O.K., big shot, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Remember, your dad has cut you a lot of slack, as far as he’s concerned, and he expects some respect and courtesy in return. And that includes the way you dress when you are with him."

Being a know-it-all, I blithely ignored my mother’s warnings and advice and went along with my own plan. I continued to admire my wavy brown hair that had some highlights from the summer in the sun and time on the soccer pitch. I did remember to wear my ‘good jeans’ on Saturday (no holes in them), with a clean LINKSOUL tee shirt that my dad, a big Lee Elder supporter liked. I even combed my hair and put extra gel on to get it flat. But the last thing my dad said to me as I walked out the door after breakfast was: "your mother has already spoken to you about that hair, get it cut in advance of your grandfather’s arrival. And be prepared to dress appropriately while he is here."

I started to respond with my usual snarky "whatever," but mom caught my eye, and I quickly added "you say, dad," and scooted out the back door." As a result, I did not hear the conversation that followed.

"Helen, that boy is getting too big for his britches. I caught that look you threw him when he was getting ready to sass me. And it is dang disrespectful to you that he hasn’t taken care of that hair yet. He is on very thin ice. I never wanted to be the kind of harsh disciplinarian that my father was, so I have let you guide me on a path of more moderation. It has helped me build more of a relationship with our son than I had with my dad growing up, but I am not sure I am liking the young man he is becoming. I don’t know what he really believes in or stands for. You know, dad and I get along so well now. I understand more with each passing day his parenting approach that "when you were a child, I was your dad, not your buddy." I’ve tried to straddle that line more, but if our son doesn’t get into line for dad’s visit (and buckle down with school and his other responsibilities), he is in for what might be called "a short, sharp, shock."

The week went by in a whirl of school activities and on Thursday, I thought I had the whole "pop-pop visit" situation well in hand. I had an appointment at my favorite salon at lunchtime Friday. That meant I would be all set for my grandfather’s arrival on Saturday afternoon and I even had a couple of shirts with collars (they were ‘vintage’ and pretty wild), but they met the basic requirement. I can’t say that I was too thrilled, then, when the Assistant Principal, Mr. Logan, came to my Chemistry class and handed a note to my teacher. The teacher read the note and nodded. When the bell rang at the end of class, the teacher told me to stay behind. When all the other students had left, he handed me the note that said: "Matthew’s father will meet him at the attendance desk at noon to sign him out for the rest of the day." Oh crap, I am in big trouble! I looked down at my Burning Man Tee shirt and my scruffy jeans, and knew I was in trouble. I didn’t even think about my hair that was in its usual floppy school style.

Dad, punctual as always, was there waiting for me and in his own devious way, had a big smile on his face to greet me and for Mrs. Conti, the lady who we called the "Truant Queen." She was nice, but she oversaw the register of students who arrived late or left early, and she took her job seriously. We all understood that in the age of whack-jobs with guns shooting up schools, there had to be a record of who was in the building if the bad stuff happened. Anyway, we said goodbye to Mrs. Conti and went out to dad’s car and got in. "What’s up dad?"

"I’ll tell you what’s up, or perhaps I’ll tell you what’s coming down on you. The full weight of responsibility is coming down on you, young man. Your grandfather is arriving today instead of tomorrow. We gave you two weeks to get your hair cut and start dressing presentably, but, as you always do, you decided to cut corners, tried to wait until the last minute and disregard your mother and me. Since I had to take time off from work anyway, I had a chance to speak with your guidance counselor and the Assistant Principal, they both told me that, while you are an extrovert and popular, you do not work to your full potential." (I did not like where this tongue lashing was heading.)

"Look dad, I think this is something of a misunderstanding. I can show you at home that I had some nice, collared shirts picked out and I have an appointment at ‘Ultima’ to get hair st.., I mean cut tomorrow."

"Oh, I looked at those hideous old paisley and polyester knit pattern rejects from the flower power era in your closet and I took them back to the vintage clothing store when I stopped at ‘Ultima’ to cancel your appointment. I’ll be taking control of your grooming and fashion until we see a distinct improvement in several areas. We will start with that mess on your head at my barbershop and then head to an appropriate men’s clothier. Academics will be discussed soon.

"Dad, please can’t we talk about this, I’m sure we can find a compromise."

"Matthew, a compromise requires two parties who agree in good faith, not the kind of ‘compromises’ you have made with your mother, to which I have acquiesced, out of a misconceived sense of ‘allowing you to find yourself.’ No son, you have shown that you are not mature enough to share in these decisions and for the sake of your future, stronger control must be taken. Am I clear? The only correct response is ‘yes sir.’"

"Yes Sir."

"Very good. I like that it was not delivered with your usual sarcastic attitude. Now, as we have arrived at the barbers, I expect you to act like a mature young man. Your hair will be cut, and it will be cut very short. No tears, no histrionics and no complaints."

I automatically responded, "yes sir."

Alright, then let’s go inside and get this done.

As the door opened, Albert, who had been dad’s barber and had cut my hair until I was 12, stood and greeted my dad. "Mark, I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. You were just in Saturday. This can’t be your son Matthew." I managed a slight smile and Albert approached me and shook my hand warmly.

"Yes, Albert," dad replied, "the prodigal returns. Matthew will be a regular here again. Hop up in the chair Matt and let Albert get you caped up. I did as dad directed and soon was engulfed in a white cape with a strip of white paper around my neck. Before Albert even had a chance to ask either of us how my hair was to be cut, dad moved his agenda forward. It’s time for a big change for Matthew, we are refocusing on his studies and college preparation and so he needs a good no-nonsense low maintenance haircut. He’s going for a nice high and tight. Number 2 on top and zero on the sides."

Albert looked at dad and then at me. He placed his hands on my head and lifted my bangs up. Then he said, "Matthew is a good-looking young fellow, favors you a lot Mark, he can certainly wear a high and tight with no problem. OK, let’s get to work." It happened so fast. The next thing I knew, Albert was holding my head and running the guard less clippers around my head, just about where a part would be. I was quickly left with a skinned U around my head. Albert then removed all the hair below it with precision. I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I simply could not believe this was happening to me. After he had finished skinning the lower half of my head and going over it with a foil razor, he placed a number two guard on the clippers, stood directly in front of me, raised my bangs with his comb and slid the clippers underneath them and pushed the clippers all the way back. I started to lose it with the second pass. Albert became my hero at that moment when he said, "oh sorry Matthew, I let some little hairs go right in your eye, here, let me brush them off and then turned the chair away from my dad, and handed me a towel to ‘get the hair out of my eye,’ giving me the precious seconds I needed to regain my composure. He then went back to work, finishing off the top with the Number two, then blending it some with another guard. He then did the detail work with the hot foam and straight razor and even spent a minute with scissors making sure any strays were cut down to size. When he was done, he turned me to face the mirror and I didn’t know what to do. I looked like one of those kids in a police bootcamp video. I reached up to touch my head and, of course, missed it by an inch or two because my perspective was still off. I looked so darn clean cut and young. Albert brushed me off and removed the cape.

As I stood, I turned to him and said, "thank you, sir." From the look he gave me, I think he knew, it was as much for masking my embarrassment as it was for the haircut.

He smiled at me and said, "No, thank you, Matthew, I wish all of my customers were as pleasant and well-mannered as you when undergoing such a transformational haircut."

Dad added, "well, I’m glad you two have gotten reacquainted because Matthew will be back; every two weeks to keep his high and tight looking fresh, won’t you Matthew?"

"Yes sir," I replied.

As dad promised, our next stop was a very traditional men’s store where I knew he liked to shop. Within an hour, dad had bought me a new school wardrobe of dark colored trousers and long sleeve shirts with button down collars, in several solid colors. I was given some short sleeve button downs for weekends, along with a couple of knit shirts with logos on the breast and lightweight cotton sweaters. Appropriate underwear and socks, black shoes and brown shoes that would need regular polishing. A pair of gym shoes and a pair of running shoes, plus a pair of casual shoes for weekends. A few white shirts and ties were added in. Since I had a new suit recently, I did not need to go through that indignity. Dad did insist that we buy a pair of knit hats in dark colors for cold mornings until my head adjusted. Dad had me change into one of my new "casual outfits" and we headed home.

My mother was effusive in her praise for my new look, too effusive, in my opinion, but that is what moms are for, right? Dad asked if she had heard further from "pop-pop" and she said he had said to expect him around 4:30, about an hour from now. Dad told her he and I would go upstairs to see to my new clothes and to discuss some other things. I ran up the steps to my room with all the packages of my new clothes and shoes. I noticed that the door was ajar. As I opened it fully, I almost dropped everything I was carrying because the room had changed in appearance almost as much as I had. I had a big room. All the bedrooms were big in our house. My sister, now in her first year at college, and I had made sure our rooms were the same size when we moved in! My bed had been moved and was now neatly made up. I put the packages on the bed and looked around the room. I could see my mom’s hand at work. Most of my posters were gone. My favorite soccer poster was on one wall and a vintage Woodstock Music festival poster that my grandfather had given me was on another. My desk, with a clean top (!?) was placed before the double windows on the opposite side of the room from the bed. My dresser was on the middle wall. I opened my closet and found it mostly empty. I turned to the dresser and found its content similarly reduced. I looked in the mirror above the dresser and suddenly, the gravity of my situation hit me. I raised both of my hands to my head and felt the naked skin on the sides and the patch of stubble on top and just lost it. I sat down on my desk chair and started to cry. I couldn’t help myself, I never cry. I have taken some hard hits on the soccer pitch and had some wicked road rash when I’ve had some bicycle crashes. But this was something else. I had been sitting there for few minutes blubbering away when dad came in and gently closed my door. I stood when he entered the room, I didn’t know what else to do. "Come here son," he said, with his arms open. I walked awkwardly toward him, and he engulfed me in a bear hug.

"Matthew, I hope you know that your mom and I love you and your sister more than we love life itself. I am sure that this has been a terrible day for you and returning to school tomorrow will be just as bad. Let’s sit down for a moment." He went to the bags on my bed and dug into the one that had the socks and underwear. He pulled out a package of cloth handkerchiefs, opened it, and handed me one. "A gentleman is always prepared," he said with a slight smile. Someday, you may understand why I am doing what I am doing. You are smart, talented and capable, much like I was at your age. We both are like that Marvel Hero, the Silver Surfer, we can absorb and manipulate the universe's ambient energy. That means we can slide by, if we are allowed to. Pop-pop tried to tell me that when I was in high-school. I disregarded his guidance. I was angry and sullen. He made me have short hair and neat clothes. What I didn’t realize was that my future was in my hands, and he was trying to prepare me. Luckily for me, my dad had been molding me for so long that I made it through high school and got into a good college and met your mother. Pop-pop’s discipline and your mom’s love got me through. I see in you, a young man that is very close to going down the wrong path, so I am intervening. I hope I am not too late. Now let’s get these clothes put away. Your missing clothes and various ‘doodads’ are all put away for now. We want you to focus on your academics and soccer next year. We have college visits and college applications in the coming year. You need to have a laser focus on what is important.

Dad and I talked, really talked, while we hung clothes, put other clothes in drawers. He warned me not to over-react to the teasing I was going to get and to understand that real friends do not care what is on the outside. I was given a curfew for the next two months to see how I would improve. He had me wash my face and when I came back to the room, he had a shirt and trousers laid out for me to wear to school Friday. He also said that he would be up to show me how to shine my shoes before bedtime. At that time mom called up the stairs that pop-pop was pulling in the driveway. Dad went downstairs first to greet his father in the driveway and help him with his bags. "Now," I heard pop-pop say, "where is that grandson of mine? Matty, come see your old grandfather."

I took one last look at myself in the mirror and walked down the stairs. "Pop-pop, welcome. It’s great to see you." His eyes grew wide as he held me at arm’s length and carefully looked me over head to foot.

"I see you have made some changes. That haircut suits you and you look mighty fine Matt. You and I will need to have a little talk later."

"I’d like that sir. If you like, I will tale your bags to the guest room." I had never called pop-pop ‘sir’ before, but it seemed like dad would expect it. When I returned from putting the luggage in the guest room, I excused myself, telling pop-pop that I had missed a couple of classes this afternoon and had some work to catch up on before dinner and went back upstairs.

I didn’t know until much later that dad and pop-pop went to the den and had a chat. "So, Mark, I take it you have lowered the boom on Matty."

"Well pop, you were right about many things. Even Helen has come to agree that Matthew needs to be focused. The haircut may seem extreme to him, but I needed to get his attention. If he responds, we can relent a little. The clothes too, at least for leisure, once he proves that he is taking this seriously."

During dinner, much of the conversation was about my grandfather’s drive up the coast from Florida in his new small RV. He had a way of making any normal occurrence into an interesting story and he always managed to make his trips into adventures. He turned to me and said, "you know Matt, seeing you with your new haircut reminds me of something that happened a long time ago. My high school had a rowing team, since we lived near the Potomac River, and it wasn’t too expensive back then to find a boat house to let a school store their equipment reasonably. One of the guys in my neighborhood rowed and had hair that was pretty long for the time. I remember it hanging down to his nose and reaching past the bottom of his ears. Several of his teammates had hair that long or even longer. Well, their coach was old school, and he was not having it. He told all the boys (and back then, they were all boys) to get haircuts. They all did and went back to the coach with what they thought were nicely styled trims. He sent them right back saying they needed to get what he called "real haircuts." When they returned the second time, he lined them up. While he could now see their ears, their hair lines were still very full and some had bangs that reached their eyebrows, though all had them slicked back. He had anticipated this and had ready an envelope with each boy’s name. Inside was a sheet of paper with a list of four local traditional barbershops and enough cash to cover the prevailing cost of a regular haircut. The coach told the boys that he had spoken to each shop and all they needed to do was pick one and identify themselves as a member of his team when they got in the chair. This was on a Friday afternoon. They all returned Saturday, neatly groomed and ready to row. That coach taught the team such a sense of commitment by his dedication to them that by midseason, they were policing each other on maintaining their haircuts. They won the State championship that year."

"Go ahead, dad, tell him the final part of the story," my father urged.

"Well, Matt, that boy from my neighborhood was you grandmother’s older brother. He later joined the Marines and died in the bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon in 1983. He had won an appointment to the Naval Academy and chosen to be commissioned as a Marine Corps officer upon graduation. His favorite saying was ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Now, why don’t you and I clear this table so your mom and dad can relax a bit before we have some coffee and that delicious looking cherry pie."

Once we had the table cleared, we started rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. I loved doing things with pop-pop, everything flowed so smoothly. As we finished, he rinsed his hands and dried them and came up behind me and rubbed my stubbly head. He turned me around to face him and said, "you’ve got this, Matty. We all believe in you. Now you tell me that you’ve got it."

"I’ve got this pop-pop. I believe in myself, and I believe my family is behind me."

Alright then, let’s see what kind of pods we need to feed into that fancy coffee machine and get the cups, saucers and pie plates out, shall we?"

The next day at school was as bad as I anticipated. I heard every terrible joke. I was teased about my haircut, my clothes, my shoes. It wasn’t until Spanish class that Señora Hernandez told me my haircut was ‘bonito’ and made me look like ‘un soldado’. After class, Cassie Hinson who was one of the best-looking girls in the school, told me she liked what she called my "new look." She asked me to see my cell phone and quickly put her number in and told me to call her after school. That morning, anticipating the worst in the cafeteria, I had got up early and made myself a sandwich and figured I would find a quiet place to eat where I could get a little peace. I had decided to head out to the bleachers next to the football field, figuring they would be pretty empty. I had just sat down when I saw two of my soccer teammates waving and heading my way. "Oh great," I thought, "more teasing to follow." But, to my surprise, the guys came running up to me and were all concerned.

Billy, our best Striker, said, "Man, what happened. Johnny saw you and your dad leave yesterday and nobody heard from you. We asked coach and he said it was a family issue."

Johnny, our Goalkeeper, added, "we were afraid somebody had died or something worse."

"Johnny!" Billy, shook his head and said, "too many headers, "or something worse." That made smile for the second time that day, Cassie being the first.

I gave the guys an abbreviated version of the story, saying that my parents decided I needed to buckle down on my studies and they felt I needed a change in attitude. Dad thought that could be helped along by a severe haircut and wardrobe change. And I admitted that I might have gotten away with a less severe haircut if I had gotten it on my own in anticipation of pop-pop’s arrival.

They were pretty sympathetic and yet being guys, they also gave me some good natured sh*t. Billy asked if he could touch the top. "Whoa dude, that is awesome! How long are you going to keep it?"

"It’s up to my dad, really. I must show him more discipline. I don’t think he is going to let it get as long as it was before while I’m in high school, that is for sure."

"Don’t worry bro, from here on, we (and I mean the whole team) has your back.

How this all turned out, is another story, perhaps for another day.

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