Gimme a head with hair, long beautiful hair...

It was a hit Broadway play. Then a hit song on the radio. Then a movie. And now for me, it's a long lost friend! We're talking hair, of course, that follicular substance humans now only have in select areas of their bodies.

When I was a teenager in the mid-60's, my parents pretty much insisted that I keep my hair well-trimmed. After all, I was still living at home and my father did not want his male child running around looking like a "hippy". Besides, at that point in time, most of my peers locks were well-cropped as well. Hell, in those days the High School Gestapo still managed our grooming and dress standards. No long hair, no sideburns, no mustaches, no beards...it just wasn't allowed. Geeze, they even made us tuck in our shirts, we couldn't wear jeans, and ballcaps (or hats of any kind) weren't tolerated either! Ah, memories of living in a true police state. Times have changed.

After graduation from high school in 1967, I spent two years farting around in college. After that, I lived four glorious years in the armed forces where, among other things, I learned to light farts with a match...but that's fodder for a whole other story in itself. Don't try this a home...I was a trained professional. During my stint in the U.S. Navy, hair regulations were not much stricter than my father's rules. In fact, it was while I was in the service I actually grew my first beard. Well, at 19, it was kind of a beard...a bit scraggly and not completely filled in yet. I longed for the volume of facial hair only seen on Neandrathals and lycanthropes.

After being released from active duty, the hair growing race was on...it was 1973. I let it grow. Although it never reached the middle of my back, my hair was shoulder length or longer (another line from the song), thick, black, and relatively manageable. I could swing my head from side to side and my locks would strike me in the face. I could smell my hair, thus determining if it was in need of a shampoo (even though I washed it every day anyway). My hair was wavy...it still is what's left of it. Having wavy long hair, I spent inordinate amounts of time trying to blow dry it straighter, never having much luck. It didn't matter though. It was long beautiful hair! And that brings me to the line Billy Crystal used in some of his monologues, "When you're young, you have lots of hair on your head. As you get older, you start losing that hair...and start growing it where you don't want it! Like in your ears and your nose. For the ladies...the upper lip".

I fantasize about having a long, full, thick head of hair. I even have dreams about it. Although I am certainly not obsessed about it, this thing about my hair is like pining over a long, lost love. It's gone forever...poof! It can never return, despite the claims from hair restoration clinics, chemical applications, or toupee farms. I pledged long ago to never attempt any type of hair augmentation. A rug looks like a rug. Hair implants look like a plastic doll's head. And one of those Trumpesque comb-overs? Fahgeddaboutit.

So, as I gazed into the bathroom mirror this morning, searching for errant follicles sprouting from my inside my nose, on the outside of my nose, my eyebrows (yes, they have managed to propagate thicker hair over the years), and my ears (a particularly difficult area to detect), I waxed nostalgic once again. "Oh, gimme a head with hair...long beautiful hair...don't ever have to cut it 'cause it stops by itself..."

Where did I put those tweezers?