Blog 119 – 9.18.15

I came of age in the late nineteen sixties and always wanted to wear my hair long as was popular then. But since I went into the military shortly after high school and a very conservative Bible College not long after I got out of the Army I just never got around to it. I let it grow for about year three years ago and yesterday I got my first haircut in sixteen months. Surprisingly, aside from a little harmless teasing from workmates I did not get much comment on my long ponytail or shaggy mane when I worn it a few times not pulled back.

I believe hair style is a matter of personal taste and choice. When I joined the U.S, Army at aged eighteen in 1968 one of the first things they did was buzz cut our hair. The Drill Instructors affectionately, it did not seem so loving at the time, called us Meatheads. It was same term Archie Bunker used for his son-in-law about two years later in the TV sitcom All In the Family. I wonder if Archie knew my D.I. The whole point of Basic Training was to train us to work together as a team, we dressed alike, did everything together by-the-numbers alike, and all had the same hair style. And just in case one guy’s hair was darker, lighter, a different color, or grew faster we got a fresh hair cut every week so we all had the same skin-head look. We were brothers and they wanted us to look like it.

The ultra-conservative Bible College I attended had rules about proper attire including the length of girls skirts and boys hair. They often quoted an odd couple of lines attributed to the Apostle Paul where he said long hair was a woman’s covering or her glory or some such but the part that always rang even sillier to me was the line following, “Doth not nature itself show you that it is a shame for a man to have long hair.” All nature has to say about hair is that if you don’t cut it that it will grow. Samson, the Nazarite, had long hair, and Jesus, the Nazarene, is most often depicted with long hair. Granted we have no photographic proof of either but even in Bible College I was more inclined to believe the words from the musical Hair than an old time Jew that often seemed often to be preaching his opinions as Gospel. The long-haired singers in the musical Hair sang:

Give me a head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, flaxen, long beautiful hair,
Give me down to there,
Hair.

Years later when I left the ultra-conservative church for a little bit roomier box religion on a Easter Friday they had a “unity” service with two other churches even more liberal than they. My father-in-law was visiting us from South Carolina at the time and so I invited him to church with me. Honestly I knew even the church I had been attending was way too liberal for his tastes but I wanted to see his reaction. Well, they had a priest up front in a monk style robe. The robe my pastor wore was a black robe like graduates wear minus the flat square hat. Anyway I could see Dad was not pleased. The songs we sang from the hymnal were so old that A Mighty Fortress Is Our God by Martin Luther was the only one even I recognized. We looked back and saw a person in a long robe with long brown hair carrying a cross on their shoulder. As the figure passed our pew in the center aisle we both saw at the same time that the figure representing Christ was a woman. That was way too much for my conservative father-in-law to get his head around. He didn’t say anything but he got me back for that one.

That summer, my wife, son, and I drove from Houston, Texas to South Carolina to visit her family there. It just so happened that while we were there Dad’s Mom’s church, which was way more conservative than even his, was having a week long Revival of evening services. Would I like to go with him? Okay, Dad, I owe you one. Did he ever get even. The little Good Friday service I took him to lasted about thirty minutes. The one he took me two was a good two and a half hours where we were brow-beaten for a good two hours about living a life so devoid of modern entertainments and dress that it made the Amish seem like a bunch of wild teenagers bent on changing all the morals and dress codes. The young preacher at one time in his rant asked, “How many of you men would marry a hussy wearing short hair and pants.” I had to hold my arm down with the other arm to keep from raising it for my wife who was wise enough to decline her dad’s invitation to “church” was back at the farm with my son and her mother, all three of whom were far smarter than I, sporting her cute short hair cut and wearing a lovely pair of short pants. Needless to say that was the last time Dad and I attended a church services together both agreeing to allow the other to worship according to their own choice and taste.

When your taste dictates you wear your hair a certain way, dress a certain way. attend a certain lodge or church, root for a certain team or political party it is natural to think you made the best choice and line up the reasons you think it is the best choice. But my friends and even Paul, it just doesn’t make it the “only reasonable choice.” People have different tastes and often a different take on things. For sometime now when expressing thoughts, ideas, opinions, even beliefs I try to remember to add the caveat or disclaimer. “It’s only my opinion and I could be wrong.” Dennis Miller used to say that before he became so conservative. I thought he was funnier then and his rants way more intellectual and relevant, but again that is just my opinion and I can be and am often wrong. Just ask my wives, they’ll tell you, all but the first. She is above all this, in heaven.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White