“Time for a haircut,” says John, running his hand across the back of his head and through the graying wisps growing over his ears. “Yes, it is – you’re getting pretty scraggly,” I reply, looking sideways at my husband from my comfy armchair nearby, as I type on my laptop and sip morning coffee. For […]

My hair is bird-feather thin and straight as a board. It has been parted in the middle and over to one side, but that’s about it. I had experimented with the little Pebbles Flintstone ponytail on top of my head, and the Princess Leia braids wrapped around my ears. My favorite was the Katharine Hepburn […]

Haircuts? I’ve never liked them. Being organized enough to schedule a chunk of time to sit around losing hair? What a bother! Then, sitting still for that chunk? What a waste! So why, oh why, do I now crave one. Haircut? If only! I expect it has to do with wanting what’s out of reach. […]

My mother, of course, was right. I would have looked better if I had my hair cut. This became clear to me recently when college friends from the late ’60s and early ’70s shared some old photos. Like pretty much every other guy back then, I had grown my hair long. Too long. Long hair […]

I never liked haircuts, even when I had hair. I still have some hair, but less of it resides on my head and more of it sprouts from my eyebrows, nostrils and ears. The combination of male-pattern baldness and growing old is a terrible one-two punch to one’s male ego and vanity. Especially since, as […]

The coronavirus prohibitions haven’t had any effect at all on my haircut routine. It’s because I haven’t set foot in a barber shop and have taken care of my own hair for more than a half-century. How did this haircut habit come about? Well, during my early years I was a regular haircut-getter every few […]

I wasn’t born bald. My entrance into the world was with a topknot of strawberry blond hair, quickly tied up in a blue ribbon. I was presented to my mother, who said she “always wanted a redhead!” It was to be my “best” feature all my life. When I was in first grade in Dayton, […]

My 65-plus years have seen many haircuts. Growing up, the only folks in my family who got regular, “real” haircuts were the men. I went along when our dad took my brother for his first haircut. That little barbershop with its red and blue barber pole going around outside is still there. The barber with […]

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with haircuts. According to my parents, I did not enjoy my first trip to the barber shop. When documenting the occasion in my baby book, my mom charitably wrote: “He didn’t like it!” She later told me she didn’t want to write that I screamed my head off the […]

What is a haircut if not the style your head wears that may define (or confine) your persona? What is a haircut if not the physical outer image of what lies within? And to wax even more philosophically, is our choice of haircut meant to defer or refer to our individual personalities? And so it […]