home » stories » by mesearch within stories
Family Stories
A potpourri of stories about various family members or events
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
The phrase is supposed to be “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” and it is supposed to convey that some things last only a short time. Some people apply this to their hair and change the first word. This will be a hair story. My hair, mostly. I had a haircut a few days ago (where I was both the subject and the object, grammatically speaking), and it got me thinking about my haircuts through the years.
There is a common saying that if you are male and you want to have an idea what will happen to your hair as you grow old, look at your mother’s father. Geneticists now know that it is not quite that simple. There are other factors involved, but this can at least be a starting point, so let’s start there. Here is (or should I say “Hair is” – no!) my mother’s father: George Smith. He is in his mid to late 60s or so. Note his receding hairline, though not bald as a cueball.
Grandfather George Smith
Like many children, I started not having much hair.
Al – 1 month old
Mom allowed my hair to grow out and even show some curls.
Al – 1y4m
At some point, Mom changed haircuts from an opportunity to create attractive-looking kids to finding a way of getting the task done as efficiently as possible. This is most likely because she had seven heads to cut. We often had a day when everyone got their hair cut, taking turns one at a time. The crew cut was the quickest and easiest.
L (3), Al (4)
Sometimes I was not keen on how the haircut turned out and so I got creative. I was a trend-setter by coloring my hair.
Al – 6
Here is another example of being creative with the hair, but this method starts to stink and ties up both hands.
K (12) Al (8)
Another method that Mom had for cutting was to use the bowl cut. Place a bowl over the head and cut what is seen, and then thin what is left. Sometimes mom would allow some slight variation in the bowl approach by enabling “side burns”.
Al – 5th grade
Note that so far, I have only mentioned haircuts from my mother. She did all of our cuts. There was an exception. I think I must have begged her, but in either the third or fourth grade, she allowed me to go to a barber. (She may have taken others to a barber — I have never asked.) I am not sure why I made the request, and I never asked again. I was fine with her continuing. But in 8th grade, I kept pushing her to increase the time between haircuts. In other words, I wanted longer hair. Below is my (fall) 8th-grade photo.
Al – 8th grade
The late 60s and early 70s was a period where many people let their hair grow and grow. This saves on having to sharpen the clippers. Here, E (on the right) is the one with the short hair.
Oct 1972 K A L E Jamestown, ND
While mom used to be willing to cut our hair, she didn’t beg us. At a certain point, some of us figured she had cut enough hair, and there was no rush for the next cut.
Al – Feb 1974
The last photo was taken at Jacob’s Coffee House at the Salvation Army building in St. Cloud. This was likely on one of the earliest outings that Marcia and I had together. The basement of this building had a ping-pong table, a pool table, free popcorn, and other snacks. It seemed like a good place, based on these four attributes. At some point after this, I realized that I needed a haircut, but I wasn’t sure if my mom could do it any longer and keep what I wanted. The previous haircut that she gave me was the last one. (Probably a year or two earlier.) In the late spring or early summer of 1974, I asked Marcia if she would like to cut my hair. She smiled and hesitantly agreed. We got set up, and her sisters, Nona and Jo, happened to be around. She looked to Nona and asked “Any advice?”. Nona suggested something, and Marcia looked quite tentative as she started to implement the suggestion. Nona offered to help. Marcia and I looked at each other and sort of gave a “Guess so” look. I had only just met Nona, so I was a little hesitant, but she seemed to have confidence. Marcia watched and learned and took over after that haircut.
May 1975 I was usher at Jo’s graduation
Slowly, Marcia was able to cut it back to a shorter haircut.
wedding – June 1978
Marcia trimmed the hair back, but partly matched with some natural receding. To compensate, I put the hair elsewhere.
Tim + Al – April 1981
Since the time Nona first cut my hair, I am fairly certain that Mom never did it again, as Marcia took over. Marcia had a good attitude about it and somewhat enjoyed it, and tried to do a good job. When I had to go back to Notre Dame to defend my thesis in November 1989 (since one of my board members had a family event that necessitated it being postponed from the scheduled summer defense), I wanted to get a haircut. Marcia was a bit busy at the time, and I also thought it might be worth trying to go to a barber again. So, my second haircut at the barber occurred at that time. For some other reason, within the next several years, I went to a barber in Pella again for the third and last (so far) time. I have no recollection of the impetus for this, but I know it happened.
Sometimes the kids liked watching me trim my beard for the summer.
Feb. 1994
Marcia started coloring my beard while I slept. It took a while for her to get to all of the hairs.
Christina has a birthday - 1995
She kept making progress.
Family in 2000
Sometimes when I got a haircut, my students would comment and ask “Did you get a haircut?” Some times I would answer, “No, actually almost all of them were cut.”
Remember the portion of the title: “Gone Tomorrow”. As the top receded, the beard whitened, and I realized it wasn’t all Marcia’s fault. About this same time, Tim started experimenting with shorter hair and extolled the virtues when showering time came, and Marcia and I agreed to shorten mine up as well. Additionally, about this time, instead of her just cutting my hair, I started cutting hers as well. The first time she asked me, I knew exactly how she felt when she was going to cut mine for the first time. I warned her that I might do a sloppy job, but that I would try to do my best. That was the case, but as time went on, I was able to do it better, and then she rarely needed to fix it up after me. We usually both wanted one at about the same time, so it worked out.
Aug 2005
After Ben was born, I brought my mom down to Kansas to see Ben, Tim, and Chelsea. This picture below is interesting because we start all over again with Ben’s hair hardly being there, my beard turning quite white, and my head slowly turning silver, while mom’s hair had become mostly silvery-white. Ben was barely a month old, I was about 51, and Mom was about 83. In the preceding years, my mom was becoming increasingly weaker. For some reason, Christina thought I should shave my beard. One time she asked my mom, her grandmother, “Grandma, don’t you think Dad should shave his beard.” Mom readily answered with an affirmative expression. Christina knew how to manipulate the situation. So I decided to go without a beard for a few years. Some people may think the beard is to make me look older or more professorial. For me, it was all pragmatic. It meant I didn’t need to shave very often, and in the winter, it kept me warmer. Period.
Jan 2009
In the first part of 2017, I spent 6 weeks in Thailand with Christina. (I joined her at her school, with me teaching calculus). I brought with me our hair clipper. I had not clipped my own, but I knew that I needed to learn for this period. The approach I adopted was easy since I simply added the appropriate attachment to the clipper and plowed through my hair, followed by some later tidying. As I knew that Marcia was likely going to be dealing with cancer soon, I also started wondering if I was also practicing for the future. As Marcia started treatments in the summer of 2017, she could still cut my hair, and I still did hers. She started her “hard chemo” at the beginning of June, and a month later, her hair started coming out in larger and larger portions. On the morning of July 4, as we were getting ready for the noon picnic for all at the lake, she became so frustrated with her hair that she took out the clipper and asked if it was OK to trim hers. Although I tried to discourage her, she just wanted it all to come out at once since it was frustrating to have it come out in clumps. So I helped her cut it.
July, 2017
In her last months in Pella and up at the cabin, Marcia offered to cut my hair, but I asked her to instead give me feedback as I did it myself, so that I could learn. She helped me. I have found that using the clipper with a particular attachment and then using it for the whole head is the easiest way to cut my hair, and the results are the easiest to maintain. As of today, having cut my hair for close to seven years, I am feeling fairly confident, but I am still not very good about trimming the back hairs at a level line. But with COVID, there are fewer people to check out how successful I am. Here is my cut from 3 days ago.
Feb, 2021
Hair gone? Almost.
Published 2021-02-12. Revised 2025-06-29.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
Why do you walk everywhere?listing of family stories by me How My Parents Met