Embrace that baldness with ferocity!

As a parent, there are certain traits we wish to pass on to our children –Daddy’s blue eyes, Mama’s pretty smile or Grandmother’s creative talents.

My son called me today to sarcastically thank me for passing on one of my Dad’s most noticeable traits – his bald head.

My father started losing his hair when he turned 18. Photos of him in his U.S. Navy uniform show some wavy brown hair, but it’s quite obvious this young sailor’s hairline is receding. By the time my dad was in his 30’s, he was almost bald.

He was so self conscious about his balding head that he ordered a toupee, an expensive luxury in those days. We were mortified, Dad was thrilled and he wore that rug for years, and not always successfully.

We love to tell family stories about the times my Dad’s toupee wasn’t cooperative.

One was when he forgot he was wearing his toupee and he dove into the neighborhood swimming pool. All we saw was something furry floating on the top of the water, a hand coming up from the deep, reaching up and snatching the poor pelt.

A minute later, my dad came up in the shallow end, holding the wet toupee to his head and walked out of the pool with as much dignity as he could muster.

Once my dad and brother went on a carnival ride where the outside wall spins faster and faster. The floor eventually drops out, but the centrifugal force keeps people in place. It kept my dad in place all right, but his toupee slowly started rising.

My brother loves telling how Dad fought gravity to hold the toupee onto the top of his head until the end of the ride.

Finally Dad realized how ratty that toupee was looking and decided to go “au natural.” He made a lot of jokes about his new look – he had better things to do with his energy than grow hair on his head and that the good Lord only made a few perfect heads. The rest He covered with hair.

Then today I got the phone call from my son, good naturedly thanking me for passing on the Hebert gene for baldness. No amount of Rogaine or handfuls of vitamins were going to stop his receding hairline.

I told him I was sorry and tried to offer some solutions.  

“Try not to notice it,” I told him.

“That’s like not noticing you have two feet,” he said.

 “Cut your hair really short like your cousin,” I told him. He said he wasn’t ready to get rid of the hair he has left.

“All your uncles are bald and look how fabulous they are,” I said. He agreed but said he was still in mourning over the loss of his hair.

At this point, I was out of solutions.

“Shave your head,” I practically yelled. “Strut your stuff. Pretend you’re a secret agent like Sean Connery or the captain of the USS Enterprise like Patrick Stewart.”

Be bold.

Be brave.

Be bald with ferocity.

And while you’re at it, son, keep in mind that you’ll never have to buy another hair brush.

You’re welcome.  

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.