To Make a Long Story Shorter

A barber is a very personal choice. I had one once in Thunder Bay who could barely speak English but his Italian was masterful. Unlike a typical talkative barber, this guy would just say, "Same t'ing a-like-a always?" And I would say, "Yes thanks!" And that was about the extent of it.

Mother cut our hair when we were kids: the famous "bowl cut". She didn't actually use a bowl as a guide, but the results were easily identified.

Mother's manual clippers pulled occasionally: not a pleasant experience. And I lived in terror of those scissors pokes in the back of the ears when she was "Trimming" around them. Equally, I feared the itching that took place at the end of The Trim, when she brushed us off, but the tiny clipped hairs remained like little needles. If I complained, she responded by blowing at my neck. The puff of motherly air was seldom enough to relieve the itch for more than a few minutes, but I was "grateful for small mercies", as my Dad (her most patient and least hairy customer) used to put it.

In winter, the venue during The Trim was the kitchen, a cramped corridor in which we sat on a stool during the ordeal, where the only light was provided by the kitchen ceiling fixture directly overhead. As a Child of the Depression, Mother would never approve higher than a 60 watt lamp for this unit, so The Trim was finest on top. Perhaps this contributed to my current bald spot.

If The Trim could be arranged for a Saturday, the lighting would be augmented by the ambient reflected sun, bouncing off a gray stucco wall, providing just enough illumination to reduce visibility whenever the barber stepped between it and her victim customer.

However, the real challenge was the fact that the neighbor's wall contained a large window, which sometimes framed the neighbor's children, noses pressed to the pane, enjoying the scene next door. Although they never taunted us about these moments, I felt extreme vulnerability when I went outside for about a week afterwards.

My brother likes to say, "The only difference between a bad Trim and a good one is three weeks." Sometimes, when Mother would say, "Hold still", because The Trim had continued for a longer time than I could comfortably endure, it would be followed by "I've asked you to hold still." I knew that even three weeks from that point, I would still have a small thatch to mark the place when my muscle spasm occurred.

When I was in university, I occasionally would take the electric clippers to my own cranium and emerge from the bathroom with a cut that would have made a woolybear jealous. It was all done with mirrors. The coordination of hand and eye when working in a non-intuitive direction was not of a high order. Although I never actually Mohawked, I often achieved a certain sassy imperfection that attracted comment from my peers, who evidently delighted in such deviations.

"You get run over again by yer lawn mower, Bill?"
"Gotcher ears lowered, I see, haw haw haw."
"Don't worry, I know a good barber."

And so forth.

Although I felt that buzzing my own follicles would impress my Child of the Depression mother, she never seemed to appreciate fully my frugality. Often her response would include the word, "Scalped" and an invitation: "Here, get me the clippers and let me fix that."

The other palpable memory is of the hair-raising, chilling experience of a plastic sheet being draped over a half-naked body.

We did not wear much clothing during The Trim. In the summer, we moved to the enclosed back porch, where, ironically, no neighbor urchins could actually view the process. No windows were so closely aligned, and wisteria vines provided cover on the opposite side. And the light was better. So, dressed in my Trim uniform, a pair of underpants, I exposed myself to a Trim that held the promise of a refreshing shower.

Given that Toronto in July was reliably hot and humid, the notion behind near-nakedness was that the hair was going to stick to me anyway, so why not be shower-ready, and why make all that extra work for the laundress (Mother)? The shock came when she stopped using a linen cloth, and started using a plastic cloth (why make all that extra work for the laundress?) Draping this material over my back would instantly correct my normally slumping posture. Sitting up straight was the only way control contact. Of course, as the body warmed the plastic, it was possible to assume the normal curvature, which was much more comfortable. But then the sense of humidity and stickiness eclipsed all other sensations.

My non-ergonomic posture was responsible, at times, for the distinct slope of my sideburns. Head bent forward, clippers held level. Result: six degrees of separation from true horizon.

There was always the moment when "the Bangs" were Trimmed. I closed my eyes, ears, nose and skin pores as best I could, but nothing prepared me for the oncoming steel, whose point I occasionally got in the forehead. And at the end of The Trim, Mother would stand back, shake her head slightly, and come at me again. Seldom totally satisfied with her handiwork, she would offer to Trim something she missed because "the light was bad', even as much as three or four days afterwards.

In later life, I have always resisted going to a barbershop. For one thing, I don't speak the language. For another, they seem to charge exorbitantly for something that I can do for myself. I don't miss the Playboy and Hustler magazines. We couldn't read while Mother cut hair, because it would fall into the fold of the book, and turn up in some other context at a later time.

I look at the cats and wonder, how did they manage to evolve those wonderful Trims that are always exactly the right length for their furstyle, and how come we didn't? Perhaps the creator knew that cats would never consent to sit still long enough to endure a Trim.

With one Accord we locked the doors.

The other night, OGADE had a drumming gig at a retirement community in Oxford, Ohio. The Knolls, as they are known, is a lovely, modern complex, complete with all the features and conveniences that make for a gracious denouement of life's struggles, assuming one has the means to afford it.

In any case, the performance was followed by a concensus that we repair to a local watering hole for whatever refreshment we might deem pleasing to our palates. J and I were able to park in front of the place, and we shortly ordered our entree and made our way to the patio. As it turned out, the cooks made a small error and duplicated the order, so we were able to share our choice with others of our group at no extra charge.

Suffering from sciatica as she sought to sit at the picnic table, J dispatched me to the car for her folding chair, which sports a large cushion. I went around to the side of the vehicle where I had stored the chair.

Imagine my mixed feelings of shame, anguish and frustration as I peered in the window of the unyielding door, spotting my keys reposing in full, tantalizing view on the rear seat.

It is J's habit to lock everything. Michael Moore, in his documentary "Bowling for Columbine", discovered that Canadians hardly lock their houses, let alone their cars.

I reconstructed the events in this fashion: I had laid my keys on the seat because I had both hands full at the time, retrieving my wallet from a bag on the floor. I momentarily busied myself with checking for tissues, wallet and credit card.

Meanwhile, J had extricated herself from the front seat, pressed down the lock button, and moved on to the restaurant. Satisfied that I had everything I needed, having no reliable short-term memory to speak of, I closed the door. Oh, the power, the synchonization, the irrevocability of electric locks.

Once the error became public knowledge, many helpful suggestions were offered. Most would have incurred considerable monetary loss if not physical damage. Finally, one of our members, M, offered to take us back to Hamilton (some 15 miles) to our house, where J's purse would yield the extra car key.

This solution was much preferable. A few miles toward our destination, it occured to me that the house key was also a taunting component of the incarcerated keychain. The only holder of a spare key was J's daughter who lived in the community on the far side of Hamilton.

"No matter," said M cheerfully. "We'll go wherever."

It was a long journey, taking in not merely the trip to get the key, but obviously a return to Oxford to make use of it. By midnight we were stumbling in, with work looming ever closer the next morning. However, the car was undamaged, and a lesson was learned.

According to this site,

The oldest known lock was found by archeologists in the Khorsabad palace ruins near Nineveh. The lock was estimated to be 4,000 years old. It was a forerunner to a pin tumbler type of lock, and a common Egyptian lock for the time.

That's impressive. Four thousand years of imbeciles locking themselves out of domiciles. Forty centuries of the inconvenience of non-conveyance.

I wonder if Khalil Gibran locked himself out of his studio before he wrote:

Your friend is your needs answered.

Thank you, M...
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Footnote: This article in Wired Online appeared in timely fashion today, although it probably does not apply to the situation described above.

Pass me the butylated hydroxyanisole

Remember the old days before the cell phone? In fact, the days before phones could take messages for you? Days when "the party line" didn't mean that your representative was once again voting against your best interests?

Back in that day, a conversation without multiple "clicks" being heard as your neighbors tuned in on your conversations would be a rarity. Even in cities like Toronto, phone lines were shared, and you didn't just get an "in use" signal: you heard what the other party was saying.

Interesting, therefore, is it not, that improvements in technology brought the private line within reach of the ordinary user. An expectation of privacy grew out of that advancement.

Ironic, therefore, is it not, that advancements in technology have made it possible for millions of daily conversations to be culled for keywords and phrases that might catch you up in an unwelcome net of inference. The party line is back, and you'd best be adhering to it or you'll be invited to a hearing.

And so, as the art of literate communication fades, the algorithm of text messaging surges. Today's instant messengers have rediscovered what the ancient Phoenicians knew: y dnt nd vwls 2 b ndrstd.

We were a hardier crew back in the day. If we were out on a car trip and a tire went flat in a way that we couldn't fix, we bundled out of the car and sought a farmhouse or a phone booth. Or we waved down a passing motorist who invariably would help in some way. The technology of travel was not advanced enough for us to be able to hold a cellphone up to our head, let alone have a car that knew where we were at all times, and what the problem was and how to report it.

So life is easier in many ways, but more expensive, for those services are pricey. And at some point, our dependence on technology will inevitably bite us in strange ways. Tech that reduces our physical activity levels contributes to all sorts of potential harms, such as thrombosis caused by poor circulation. Cell phones themselves are suspected of inducing tumors over long exposure.

At what price does convenience become too expensive? With oil going as it is, our ability to eat a wide range of imported foods in the off-season will be curtailed. Of course, this could be better in the long run, given the preservatives that are often added to extend the life of perishables. But extending the lives of perishables may not be extending the lives of those who eat them. Other methods may be developed to reduce the chemical components of our feasting.

Fortunately, the internet is the easiest resource to use to identify risky food additives. In a sense, the technology of information is available to counter ignorance that is fed by habit. Inertia must give way to motivation, and searching for answers is good exercise.

If you don't have enough irony in your diet, consider this: while we may be living longer, we need to work longer in order to afford our longer lifespan.