I have become my own barber for the first time in life. It is the sort of a milestone that most people don't really mark for themselves, or if they do, they don't announce it in the newspaper. Perhaps the column is the outward sign of an inward struggle with growing older. Or maybe I just have a column to write every week and little else to talk about.

There are men out there who go to the barber their entire lives, but I was at the point where I felt like I was no longer getting my money's worth. We all also know someone whose creative comb over looks ridiculous to everyone but the man in the mirror. (There's no need to try to hide that shiny scalp, my friend, it'll still be exposed for the entire world to see).

I should have long ago seen the days of flowing locks were over. But I do have a bald friend who grows his hair out on the sides despite having none in the middle. He's a man who doesn't mind flying in the face of convention, or perhaps he is barber-phobic. It kind of reminds me of Albert Einstein, minus the genius part.

I suppose my problem with the barber started when I decided I was too lazy to make an appointment and too old to wait in line. Besides at $10 each, haircuts aren't as cheap as they were a few decades ago. However, even as the price went up, the workload I took to my barber was getting less and less. So, logically, shouldn't those with half the hair pay half the price?

A few years ago, I bought a set of clippers that I could use to trim my beard and mustache, as well as cut my hair if need be. Since I have shaved off the facial hair for summer, the clippers had lain forgotten. Why? Maybe because it turned out pretty badly the last time I got a homemade haircut. It could have been a failure to commit to a buzz cut, or perhaps it was the unskilled hands using the clippers, but I ended up looking like I had been hazed by a drunken fraternity brother. My hair was layered, but instead of neat rows, I had alternating spots of long and way too short. At that time, I was holding on to the notion that I might maintain my bangs. I later went to the barber and let him clean it up as best he could. All you have to do to fix a bad haircut is cut your hair even shorter, at least until all the hair is gone.

There had always been some vain notion when I look in the mirror that there still would be hair there. In fact, the little tuft of hair that made up the front of my sideways sweep was getting more and more sparse. But sometimes the mirror, when seen through one's own eyes, does, in fact, lie.

On the front part of my head, I have a peninsula of hair that grows out from the main hair continent. On both sides are the scalp ocean that makes up my extra-elongated forehead and part of the top of my head. When seen from the perspective of my eyes, looking up toward my head, the hair looked like it was pretty much still there.

But, like the coastal barrier islands off North Carolina's coast, it was actually seeing some erosion problems and there were no engineers on the task to remedy the situation. Even the peninsula that I had depended on for safe harbor of my ego had started slipping back into the sea.

Only an honest person or a photograph will tell the tale. However, there aren't many normal people that go around commenting on people's hairlines for no apparent reason. So my truth arrived via photo, illustrating my inaccurate self-image. It was in a photo taken earlier this year that I noticed that the hair I thought was there was little more than a puff of my own imagination.

When I was a youngster, I had straight bangs, but I later grew into a teenager with longish hair, parted in the middle. Then sometime in my 20s I noticed that the part was getting a little wider. So, I decided to start combing my hair to one side. That solved the problem for a good long while, but the time had come for a new style.

This time, I let the clippers have their way, starting above the ears, where I basically scalped myself. I then stopped to look in the mirror and had a good chuckle at how silly I looked with all the other hair still in place. After that, I put on a clipper cover and buzzed what I could reach of it one-half-inch long. This was done on the back porch, with the hair flying like the fur in a catfight.

After the buzz cut was finished—the first of my life—I went into the house and asked my daughter for an opinion. "You don't really look any different," she said. You can depend on kids for the truth. In translation, she was saying, "Don't worry, you're still bald, Dad."

A few days later, I was getting ready when I saw my unbreakable comb atop my wallet. I had been carrying it out of habit for several days. "I don't need you anymore," I said aloud to the comb with a slight wistful sigh. It didn't appear upset at being jilted; perhaps longing to run it's tiny fingers through a real head of hair. In a final act of kindness, I gave it to my daughter, who has much more luxurious locks.
 

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