Gimme a head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming
Streaming, flaxen, waxen…
The Cowsills’ 1968 single “Hair” based on the musical of the same name always makes me laugh every time I hear it.
It’s just a jaunty, catchy tune, and certainly appropriate to the era of its original release. Youth in the 1960s were growing their hair long in what became known as the hippie style, and after the Summer of Love in ‘67 the Cowsills’ track was very well received indeed. I digress…
I have been fortunate in my life when it comes to hair. Certainly on my head – there’s not much history of baldness on either side of my family. It’s tough to pinpoint an actual shade to label my ‘salad’ as the kids like to call it these days. I’ve been told it appears to be everything from brown, blonde, red or auburn – whatever that last one means. A good old classic dirty blonde it is. With gingery highlights, perhaps.
Over the generations, the McNee men have also been known to produce a fine moustache; my old man had a legendary duster for most of the 1980s and through the ‘90s. Big Doug’s could be best described as a combination of Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott in his younger years before the western style began pulling it south into the elaborate horseshoe shape for which he is now best known.
Dad never really grew a beard, but his son can produce one in relatively short order the colour of a setting summer sun. That’s red, for the layperson. I’m not a fan of regular facial grooming; typically I’ll shave my face clean then let it grow back for a couple months before repeating the process. My daughter is always amused by the first sight of my beardless mug, and is fond of pointing out, “Daddy’s beard gone, in the garbage.”
And while I’ve been fairly blessed in not having to contend with an influx of unwanted back hair, as I get older it has been showing up more in unwanted places. As your mind trends towards the gutter, I’ll stop you right there by clarifying it’s more of a shoulders, eyebrow and ear situation. My wife can’t wait to get at me with the tweezers on a regular basis to eliminate the old unibrow. Women have more experience in such areas, but I couldn’t care less. I suppose it’s because I don’t have to look at myself.
For an added unwanted visual, I can say that from top to tail I pretty much have every colour of hair going. And despite a fairly extensive historical resume of ‘recreational distractions’ with the added daily stress of parenting combined with work deadlines, for some reason grey hasn’t made much of an appearance yet. Aside from a couple stray greys in my moustache and beard, the hair gods continue to smile down upon yours truly. Not that I fear the grey dawn. Salt n’ ginger has a nice ring to it.
Sometimes I think I should honour aforementioned hair gods more by ceasing to deny the world of my locks when I almost constantly wear a hat. But with great hair comes great responsibility, and I simply don’t have the desire or motivation to be bothered with styling (sometimes even combing) my mane on a regular basis. It’s a lot of work, and I could do without. Besides, how else am I supposed to advertise my horrible NHL team of choice without wearing a hat?
While I know that a great many of my bi-weekly columns are fairly random in nature, this week’s probably seems even more so. I suppose it stems from Nicole and I helping one of our neighbours with her trash receptacles last week, and she suddenly made a near-astonished comment on how nice my beard was looking that night, and that she hadn’t really noticed me with one before. Maybe it was that setting summer sun catching the ginger coloration just right…
Give me down to there (hair!)
Shoulder length or longer (hair!)
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy, daddy
Hairrrrrr…
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you back here in a fortnight.
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This is a bi-weekly opinion piece; for question or comment contact Dan McNee and his hair at dmcnee@midwesternnewspapers.com.
