DUNCAN — A few days ago, as I walked toward the front door at an area high school, I crossed paths with a couple young guys who were on their way to the parking lot.

Being Mr. Friendly, as we passed on the sidewalk I grinned and said, “Wazzup, fellas?” One of them mumbled, “Not much,” and we all kept walking toward our destinations.

However, when the young’uns were a few feet behind me, I heard one give a sarcastic snicker and say, “Yeah, wazzup, you old hippie!” Then they both started cackling like kids do when they’ve shared a goofy inside joke or think they’ve put one over on an adult.

While they poked each other in the ribs and enjoyed a moment of teen coolness, I walked into the school thinking: Great, I just encountered a new generation of Hair Police.

I mean, it had to be the hair that prompted yet another “old hippie” reference. Checking my reflection in the glass doors of the school, I noticed I wasn’t wearing bellbottoms, a tie-dyed shirt or fringe leather vest. I didn’t have on sandals or Dingo boots; there wasn’t a peace symbol button anywhere on my person.

So, I deduced — for the 680,000th time in the last couple decades — the length of my hair had prompted somebody to make an “old hippie” remark.

All I could do was shake my head in bewildered resignation and wonder: Doesn’t this “hair thing” ever end? It’s the 21st century and people are still ragging some dude about the length of his hair? Isn’t it time they GET OVER IT?

Over the years, when gentle readers have ogled my column logo, two things have probably caught your eye.

First, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the haunting resemblance between myself and Robert Redford. (Yes, I’ve had to live with that all my adult life!) Second, astute readers have also noted I like some length to my locks.

This isn’t a personal choice I made a couple of months ago — I’ve been wearing my hair at some degree of “long” since I graduated from high school in 1969.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because throughout childhood I had a burr haircut that made me look like a “turtle head.” Then all through high school, I had coaches who thought only sissy boys had hair over 1 inch long and anyone with hair long enough to part would destroy team discipline.

By the time I was 18, there was the generational factor — hair was a way to make a statement. When I graduated a year after the Summer of Love, a kazillion males my age were letting their “freak flag” flow in the breeze.

Long hair was hip and created a bond for Baby Boom guys. It was cultural and political symbolism; something that separated Us from Them, which was very important at the time.

Back in The Day, though, males had to pay a price for long hair, especially here in the country’s Great Middle. In the Heartland, a majority of older men sported tightly-cropped coifs and snarled at any cat whose hair touched the top of his ear or extended over the collar of his shirt.

The, uh, humor just flowed from the Hair Police. Over the years, I got to hear enough dorky jokes and snide get-a-haircut remarks to fill a complete edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Everything from “Did your barber lose his scissors?” to “Did your parents have any male children that lived?”

Some real gut-busters! Snork, snork. Yuk, yuk.

Thing is: As the years went by, the doors of hair freedom for men were thrown wide open. In the past four decades, the parameters of male tresses have grown and shortened with such rapidity that the line determining what’s a “conventional ’do” has blurred beyond recognition.

Take a look around, y’all. You’ll see 20-year-old guys with Mohawks, and 30-year-olds with their heads shaved. There are 40-year-olds wearing flat-tops, 50-year-olds with their graying locks pulled back in ponytails, and 60-year-olds with some really bad comb-overs.

It’s almost like society has finally accepted the notion that it’s not what’s on top of your cranium that matters, it’s what’s inside the skull cap that’s significant.

Then again, when I hear one of those “old hippie” remarks, it reminds me there’s still a long road ahead if we’re ever to achieve universal hair tolerance.

The struggle for male follicle freedom still goes on. And all we can do is just keep on keepin’ on, until one day we enter a golden age of hair acceptance, in which no one judges a book by its cover.



jeff.kaley@duncanbanner.com

580-255-5354, Ext. 172