Balding

When I was a kid my mother would sometimes wash my hair at the kitchen sink.  I think the idea was, "This kid's hair is filthy and we don't have time for a bath."  You know how at a salon there's that sink with the head rest and you're tilted backwards and it's comfortable if not downright relaxing?  This wasn't like that.  I would stand on the red step stool, bent forward with my head way down.  Mom would scrub away and then use the pull out sprayer to rinse out the shampoo.  One time, with my voice reverberating down in the sink, I asked her, "Am I going to be bald like Dad?"  The question must have caught her off guard.  Her reply was something like,  "Well, Dad grew up on a farm, and... you wash your hair a lot more often."  She was a smart lady, but we all have our moments.  What mother would be prepared to say yes?  She redeemed herself somewhat by adding, "And you brush your teeth more, so you're less likely to lose your teeth."  That was comforting.

Parents don't get to choose the conversations that their children remember for the rest of their lives.  Neither do their children.  I now know that I could have seen the answer to my question on the heads of Mom's brothers.

When I was in high school I would get my hair cut by the same woman who did my mom's hair.  Don't tell that to anybody.  She owned a two chair salon in a renovated house and had one of those special sinks.  I wish I could go back and relive those times when a meticulously groomed thirty-something woman was running her fingers through my hair while I looked up at her cleavage...

At seventeen with my mom in the room it was uncomfortable, despite the sink.

During one hair cutting session she commented on the fact that underneath my longer hair were hundreds of really short ones.  She ran her comb through, flattening my hair to show me the fuzz of short hair underneath.  "Can you see that?"

Yes.  We were looking at the first wave of casualties.

As a senior I had an obviously receding hairline and by my third year in college I was just balding.  Three years later the contrast between my hair and my pate had become too much for me
and I told my hair "stylist" to buzz it all off.  She only did that once.  I went out and bought my own clippers.

Nearing 30, I was walking on a crowded Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis.  It was a hot, sunny, summer afternoon.  A panhandler approached me, and what began as a simple request turned into something else altogether.
"Hey man!  Hey!  Help a guy out a little.  Say... you got any uh....?"
And his eyes rose up to my scalp.  He was wasted and clearly seeing something.
"Whoa!"
He kind of froze for a second.  His eyes widened and he slowly raised his hands.
"Mr. Skull!"
My pace quickened to get past him, but he followed.
"Mr. Skull!!  Hey!! Wait a minute man.  Hey! YO!  MR. SKULL, WAIT!!  HEY!!  YO!!
Walking really fast now.
MR. SKULL!  LEMME TALK TO YOU MAN!  HEY!  YO!  MR. SKULL!!  MR. SKULL!!  MR. SKUUUUUL!!!"

I was running at that point.  My buddies thought that story was a riot.  The name stuck for a little while.

Now I'm occasionally told I look like Elliot on "Just Shoot Me."  Never watched, but I guess I'm OK with that.

And my phrenologist has had it easy.