"Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is someone who needs a haircut."
--Billy (Dennis Hopper) from "Easy Rider"
"Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts."
--Jim Morrison of The Doors
Weston is undeniably the progeny of his forebears. For example: he has his Poppa's cherubic good looks mixed with his Granddaddy's non verbal facial cues. He has the lankiness of a West and the carny hands of Leacock. The kid couldn't deny his parents if he tried.
Weston has also inherited his daddy's righteous mop. Hair, that is. (Back story: back in 2001, one of Rob's seminary classmates, the inimitable The Reverend Dave Collins, from the driveway of the Berkeley Divinity School made auspicious reference to Rob's "righteous mop.") To put it plainly, Weston's bed-head looks better than 99% of the population exiting the swankiest salons. It the kind of hair that God made wind for. It's crazy in the front. Crazy awesome. And then there's the back. Crazier. Awesomer. One of my dear colleagues from St. Andrew's Episcopal School, the peerless Nathan Michaud called it a "Bowie Mullet." All Ziggy Stardust in the front; Spiders from Mars in the back
But several factors have brought us to the following tonsorial moment:
Numero uno: the obvious and practical concern, long, windswept bangs, while cool looking, can be itchy to the nose and cause minor vision difficulties. Lots of face rubbing, wiping, swatting.
Nummer Zwei: Lately, Weston's been mistaken for a girl. It's not that there's anything wrong with that. Why strangers are so insistent upon blatantly assigning gender roles to our child, is beyond me, and, frankly, kind of rude. Just saying. What's interesting is that, in the last couple of months Weston has been called a girl more times than the rest of his life put together. Its curious and awkward-making. For example:
There was that one old guy in the Crackle Barrel near Port Allen, LA who commented, "I bet she's gonna be a lot of fun at Christmas!" And how can you really respond to that? Plus that guy grilled his waitress about half the items on the menu due to health reasons. Proof that he wasn't the brightest candle on the wreath. It's Cracker Barrel, hoss. Not exactly the place to bring your multiple heart bypass concerns.
There was also that [possibly under the influence] gentleman loitering near his truck in the parking lot of the Longhorn Steakhouse in Dothan, AL on Christmas Eve who said that our "little girl" reminded him a lot of his daughter. The previous sentence may raise a lot of issues, and notably Weston was wearing a rather festive outfit, the sort that in an Eisenhowerian world-view might get a person called "a sissy" but I'll cut to the chase here, it was weird all around, mistaken gender identities foist upon our son notwithstanding.
So, we arrived at an unavoidable crossroads: Weston's first haircut. I hesitate to even use that term for all the potential negative and arbitrary values that the word connotes. To me, it basically says, "Hey, there's something wrong with you that needs to be amputated, severed, excised from you." Still, it seemed like something needed to be done.
On our morning errands, I tried to prepare all of us for this eventuality. "Weston," I would ask with as cheerful a tone as could muster. "Do you want daddy to give you a haircut?" How injured I was by his amiable "Yeah!"
So after lunch, I set upon him with brush and scissors. I consoled myself by considering that the homemade trim was a bit more 'punk' than sending him to The Man's so-called professional barber.
Here's video evidence of his transformation from baby to big boy!
