Deja Vu All Over Again

Inmate # 326451






Mom used to cut my hair when I was a kid. By "cut," I mean "shave my head with a clippers every two weeks." I'm sure we didn't have money to send me to the barbershop, but it was extremely embarrassing to go to school with little or no hair. Granted, this was all pre-Beatles, but I STILL had the shortest hair (or longest scalp) of any kid in my class. At one point, a nun (remember them? Paragons of virtue and boosters of children's intellectual ego) told me that I looked, and I quote, "like a skinned rabbit." I became the most adamant defender of longer hair at that point, and the battle with my parents only intensified with the British Invasion and subsequent hippie couture.
I made every excuse not to get a haircut, and held out long after I was on my own. At one point, I was down to two haircuts a year...just because I wanted to defy the sartorial rules that had been forcibly imposed upon me as a child. As grey began to creep in, however, I felt the need to crop my hair a bit and discuss "highlights" during my four-times-a-year appointment with the stylist. Now this:
Working with student athletes can be somewhat frustrating at times, and motivational speeches only go so far. As a result, I promised to allow one of the sports teams on campus that they could shave my head if the team earned a 3.0 GPA cumulatively. Since this feat has been accomplished only one time in the seven years I've been working with this particular group, I felt relatively safe. As one can see, however, the safety was short-lived. Proud as I was of their academic achievement, I dreaded the thought of the resulting hair style. It brings back painful memories of my childhood even though almost everyone says it looks O.K. Fortunately, one of the associate athletics directors likes his hair very short so the effect was not as dramatic. I think we've bonded somewhat now!.It didn't take long, though, for the comment I most dreaded came out:
"Hey, you look just like your grade school pictures!"
Fabulous. Rabbit stew next?