It was 1970.  I was 14 years old and needed help with life.  Being the shortest kid in my class was hard enough to handle, but couple that with my inability to excel at anything athletic, and anyone will understand why I needed help.  The eighth grade is ground zero for male insecurity.  Everybody knows that everything matters in the eighth grade– voice, wit, romance, odor, clothes, and especially HAIR.   In 1970 it was a guy’s hair that told his story.  The crew cuts and flat tops of the 50’s and 60’s were history, and guys were finally liberated to look like Jesus– or at least like the Beatles.  The coolest men on TV sported locks of hair down on their shoulders and plenty of facial hair.  Add bell bottom jeans, wide leather belts, and love beads and any guy could possess undisputed coolness.

Unfortunately, I was a 14 year old shrimp with only a little facial fuzz and very traditional parents who thought long hair was a sign of satanic rebellion.  I tried showing Dad multiple pictures of Jesus in my Sunday school quarterly to prove that long hair could be a godly look, but it was of no use.  He wouldn’t even let my hair creep over my ears, much less flow across my shoulders.  We were able to work out a compromise though.  I WAS allowed to wear my hair down on my forehead like Paul McCartney, just so the back was neatly trimmed and the entire ear showed.  He didn’t like my “bangs” hovering over my eyes, but it was a compromise he was willing to accommodate– especially when he noticed how many of my friends were actually chasing the Jesus look, while their parents were obviously looking the other way.  For me it was just the best I could get, even though I looked like a clean cut guy with love beads and a brown possum resting on my forehead.

One normal Sunday morning as the Sims family was busy getting dressed for church, a crisis erupted in our pink tiled bathroom that ruined the entire day– and could have ruined my entire life.  I was meticulously working to get a thick swoosh of hair to rest perfectly on top of my eyebrows when I heard Mom bellow from the yellow bathroom, “Where’s my Aqua-Net?”

Aqua-Net was, of course, the hairspray of choice for moms everywhere.  It was basically shellac in an aerosol can.  It was the only way to guarantee that hair would stay in place all day– no matter what.  My mom had a ninety mile an hour hairdo that lasted a week– from Friday to Friday, when she would again visit Hilda’s beauty shop.  Between Fridays, it was Aqua-Net that preserved the shape of Hilda’s weekly sculpture on Mom’s scalp.

“Mark’s got it,” my 7 year old sister turned spy announced.  That was NOT good news for my Dad to hear.  Having been dressed and waiting impatiently for the last hour, Dad freaked out and made a bee line to the pink bathroom. In the mirror I saw his eyebrows raised high as he barreled in– man on a mission.

“No son of mine is going to primp in front of a mirror with a can of hairspray in his hand!”  My normally cheerful Dad was really upset. “Follow me to my room,” he barked jerking the Aqua-Net out of my hand.  I obeyed, but should have kept my big mouth shut.

“Come on Dad, what’s the big deal?”

“If you don’t know, I’m about to show you!” he answered without slowing down.  I followed him into the yellow bathroom where Mom was getting ready.  She didn’t say a word as he handed her the Aqua-Net.  Dad yanked open the cabinet drawer and pulled out a tube of Brylcreem.  Brylcreem looked like a tube of toothpaste, but was actually something used to slick down men’s hair so that a comb could tame it.  Brylcreem was  an emulsion  of water, mineral oil, and beeswax.  It looked like lard and made hair look wet and greasy.  No!  This was 1970!  The “dry look” was in.

He squirted a generous amount of Brylcreem into his hand (although the Brylcreem jingle said, “a little dab’ll do ya.”) and began working it into my scalp!

“No, Dad, please don’t!” I begged.  He grabbed his comb and began combing my thick bangs straight back across my head.  I was mortified!  I looked like my 60 year old school principal.  How could he be doing this to me?  I could see that my Mom was disturbed.  Somehow she knew this would not be good for my self-esteem.

“Coolidge, you don’t have to do that,” she said calmly.

“Oh yes I do,” he retorted.  “He’s got to learn how to look like a man.”  Mom slipped out of the yellow bathroom without saying anything else, but her body language was loud and clear, “Momma’s not happy.”

Dad was defiant.  “He’d better be glad I don’t have scissors in my hand right now or I’d whack it ALL off.”

The drive to church was silent.  I was teary-eyed and pouting in the back seat with my sister staring at my face the whole way.  I would have screamed at her to stop looking at me, but I was afraid to say anything that might make it worse.  Mom just stared out the passenger seat window silently feeling my pain.  I wished my brother was in the car for moral support, but he was away at college doing who knows what with his hair.   Oh, the injustice!

Dad parked the big Buick in the church parking lot, but I didn’t want to get out of the car.  How in the world could I walk into the intermediate boys Sunday school class and face my friends looking like Conway Twitty?  I was ruined.  I was done for.  I would be the laughing stock of the class today, and of the school tomorrow. “Cool” would never define me, and no girl would ever want to “go steady” with a greaser.  But skipping Sunday school was not an option in the Sims household.  Deep darkness crept in as I slowly made my way into the church and up the stairs.  I hid in the bathroom for a few minutes just to gather my thoughts.  I was already late, and at least two dozen of my friends would see me and gasp when I entered the room.  Alas!  My life was over!

“Oh God, help me!” I prayed in the boys bathroom.

Suddenly I had an idea.  It simply had to work– there was no other option.  I grabbed a broom from a corner in the men’s bathroom and burst into the Sunday school room, using the broom as a microphone.

“You ain’t nothing but a hound dog.  Crying all the time.” 

Elvis had entered the room and they loved it–  Brylcreemed hair and all.

An insecure fourteen-year old survived.

 

Don’t doubt me.  There is no such thing as a silly prayer.

“Cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:7