A Confession by David Springer

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I want to set the record straight and because of that, this is also kind of a confession. It doesn’t matter one bit that this took place some 50 years ago, the emotions are still sharp.
This was 1968 and I was 15 and smack in the middle of the British Invasion when The Beatles, The Stones, and The Doors ruled my world. I played Bass in a local band, had a cool girlfriend, and of course long luxurious hair. You couldn’t get a spot in a band if you didn’t look the part. Bell-bottoms and ponchos rounded out the look.
My family all worked for my dads plumbing business. The office was located in our basement and the home phone doubled as a business line. As kids we had to answer the phone with a crisp, "Hello, this is Germans Mechanical Service." My two older brothers and I were expected to go to work with my father by the time we were 12. You can bet we could cut and thread pipe with the best of them at a very early age.
Back then my old man took a lot of ridicule from his friends and business associates because he had a "long haired" son on the job sites. This was a constant point of contention between us.
His buddies would rile him up. There was no way in hell they would ever let a son of theirs have long hair like that! What, does he stoop to pee?
I was an embarrassment to him on so many levels. My artistic nature did not exist peacefully with his old-fashioned farm boy ethic honed to an edge by his service in WW2. He wanted to raise soldiers and it didn’t help my Dad was stone bald either.
My poor Ma ran a lot of interference between us. When summers came she practically begged me to get a military brush cut like my dad wanted. I never gave in. My vision was to emulate the rock stars I admired. By the time I turned 15 things were reaching a boiling point. My sister was getting married in June and the pressure was on to look presentable. Dad was throwing down hard cash for his only daughters wedding and they didn’t want the pictures screwed up with a hippie in the midst.
This is where the lies began.
I had been fantasizing about cutting my hair for months. Back to a crew cut like I had worn every summer before the Beatles changed everything. Back to when my Dad was nicer to me.
I had tried to act on the urge the summer before. With a few bucks in my pocket I rode my bike up to the corner barbershop. My plan was to satisfy this secret desire to submit to my mom and dads authority and get the approved hair cut. I was excited and scarred as I awaited my turn in the chair. The moment of truth came and the barber asked me what I wanted. My throat tightened up and I could barely squeak, "My mom told me to get a brush cut."
The barber could clearly see I was distressed and being a pal talked me into getting a short trim that left the top long enough to comb but scalped around the ears. I left there devastated because I’d lost my nerve. That self inflicted ugly haircut didn’t know whether it wanted to be short or long. My resolve shot, I gave up on the idea until the next year.
The next summer, my fifteenth, found my hormones wound up to a new level, I would not be a kid much longer and if I was going to do something that would be considered wildly out of character by my friends, this had to be the time. My sisters wedding was over and school was out. I had a summer of working as a plumbers helper to look forward to because I was the last kid left at home with my sister married off and my brothers in the Air Force. My parents focus was entirely on me. It was now or never if I wanted to recapture something of my little boy self and their affection.
Still, the thought that my friends would think I gave into my old man made me crazy and my ego could not withstand that. I did not want to reveal to my parents why I had chopped off my hair either. I did not want them to think they had won. This conflict, the desire to conform and to rebel raged inside me. How could I put this to rest?
The compulsion to please my father and submit to his wishes was still there but something new was in the air. My body felt different. Hello puberty! Now, the thought of being shorn and running around nearly naked in just a pair of shorts all summer made me feel excited, yes, in that way!
I was a true Freudian mess.
My parents went out for dinner and drinks every Friday night and that was to be my opportunity. I would not trust a barber this time, I would do it myself. We had an old set of clippers that would do the job.
As soon as they drove off I stretched an extension cord out to our little camper where I had set up my kit and knew I could contain a mess. I took off my clothes and gazed at my face in the mirror a long time trying to imagine how I would look. What was I waiting for? I grabbed the long bangs that covered my eyes and positioned the scissors at the top of my forehead and chopped. There, I could not go back.
I flicked on the clippers, they sounded louder than my grandmothers electric lawnmower, and I began plowing them up against the side of my head tentatively. It was hard looking into my mothers hand mirror and working the clippers at the same time. The clippers didn’t have attachments and all but shaved my head wherever they touched leaving little notches of baldness. I slowly got the knack of keeping the clippers flat against the side of my head and zip, a wide patch of hair fell off the side. I worked around and got about half way up the back of my neck when the clippers became very hot and stopped cutting. I had to shut them down. My hair was an unimaginable horror show, I felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone. I started crying because like the previous year I had once again botched something as easy as cutting my hair. I couldn’t even go to a barber for help because of the late hour and obviously I couldn’t risk the embarrassment of being seen like this by anyone!
I tried oiling the blades but still the clippers would only hum. I was trapped and sat in front of the mirror horrified at the sight of my missing bangs and scalped side. The evening started darken and my window of opportunity was closing. I banged the clippers on the floor flicking the switch over and over in a final attempt to get the things working. The shears unexpectedly jumped to life and even sounded stronger and smoother than they had before. I felt like god himself had intervened and granted a miracle.
I wasted no time and quickly rode them up the sides of my scalp. The sensation of being hairless was electric. The stubble felt sandpaper rough to my fingertips. I felt exquisitely naked, exposed and wonderful. I had saved the top for last. To savor the moment I slowly pushed the clippers from front to back along the top ridge. Initially I had planned to give myself a Mohawk along the road to the buzz but I was anxious that my clippers might conk out again and I repeated the long front to back sweeps that were transforming me. Each swipe was a revelation until the clippers had done their work and the cleanly cropped top, back, and sides showed no compromise to style. Was it still me? This was as short a hair cut as was possible without resorting to a razor. Perfect. My head spun and I almost felt sick, such was the excitement of being reborn. Would my dad now tell me he was proud of me?
I still had to clean up the camper, take a shower and prepare for my parents return. When I got into the bathroom and looked in the big mirror I was horrified, my head and face were now divided into two sections. My tanned face and neck contrasted harshly with a bright white dome. My scalp simply glowed under the bright light. I was a spectacle and this was not at all what I expected. I knew all to well I was going to be a laughing stock.
Buyers remorse set in.
When my parents got home I told them I had been hitchhiking and some dudes had held me down and hacked off my chunks of my hair and when I got home I had taken it off with the clippers. I felt it was a win win lie. They got their hair cut and I kept my pride.
I held to that lie through hell and high water.
I wore a hat almost all the time around friends to hide that ivory helmet. I loved the cut and was ashamed of it at the same time always holding that awful secret close.
There was tons of speculation as to what really happened. It was widely held that my dad had finally gotten fed up and forced the issue. I was not believed until the brother of a girl in my high school class, a real rough dude, took credit for butchering my hair! My brother got a hold of that information when he got home on leave and beat that kids butt. Now everyone believed my quick lie and blood had been spilled because of it.
My dad was faced with his weird shaved headed child and I could not believe he didn't seem happy about the situation. I suppose I was in a constant dour mood since the old man stopped taking me to work and sent me to stay with my Aunt in the country for the rest of the summer where I could secretly enjoy my breezy head, run wild in just a pair of shorts, and not draw comments. My head tanned up before long and later that summer my uncle took me to visit his barber and I received a conventional brush cut. It had more finesse than the peeling I had in June and it now looked normal on me. I played the part of an old fashioned traditional Norman Rockwell all American boy and not the picture of rebellion I had been seen as a month earlier. My dad never responded or warmed up to me in spite of the change. I felt a little betrayed.
Returning to school in the fall I felt like I was different than the other kids, the bullies took their shots at me and my friends were a little hesitant to hang out with me and my outsider look. I also had a new secret, I kind of liked boys as well as girls and I shuddered to think what my parents might think about that.
My hair grew out and then, after a few short years, fell out. I have shaved my head many times since trying, I think, to re-experience the extreme emotion of that first night. I'm braver now but walking out of the house with a freshly shaved head every spring still feels nervy and liberating.
Decades later I told this true story to a few old friends who were around at the time and no one believed a word of it. The lie had more credibility than the person who told it so long ago.

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