I loved haircuts growing up. I’m not exactly sure why or even when I started to enjoy getting my haircut, but I do remember the way I felt when it was done. I felt confident, I felt like I looked good. Unfortunately, like most kids, I went through a very awkward stage in 4th, 5th and 6th grade. I was overweight and I fixed my hair with a delightful side-part.I still remember the banter I received for the way I looked, but I also remember that the reason I fixed my hair the way I did was because that’s how my dad fixed his, and that’s how my mom had combed it growing up…I didn’t know there was any other way to fix hair.
The gentleman who cut my hair during this period of my life was named Richard. He owned a curious looking salon in an old house that he and his roommate had restored. They lived together in the upper part of the house and operated the salon on the first floor. I wish I could remember the name of Richard’s roommate, but for some reason I can’t. I do remember that he played organ at my church; that Richard often sang to his accompaniment, and that he was a very quiet and private person. My mom and dad were very close to Richard and his roommate and I remember quite vividly that we use to have family meals together once in awhile.
One day I came home from school complaining to my mom that people were making fun of me because of the way I fixed my hair, I don’t remember how upset I was, and I don’t remember my mom’s initial reaction or the way she comforted me. What I do remember is that she called Richard, I don’t know what she said but what I do know is that my mom took me to see him later that night. Unlike normal though, she just dropped me off and told me that she would be back to pick me up when Richard was done. When I got there he went through a fairly normal routine. He washed my hair and made normal hair dresser small talk and then asked me about my day. I trusted him so I told him what had happened that day and that I just didn’t know how to change my hair or how to fix it any other way. It took me years to understand the significance of the talk I was about to have, but it only took me a couple days to appreciate what he did for me. Although the details are somewhat muddy I can recall the gist of the conversation. Richard told me that all we had to do was find a haircut that would look natural on me. We looked through books and I picked a fade type haircut that was popular at the time. Richard cut my hair and taught me how to put a little bit of gel in it to spike it up. During our little visit that night I remember Richard encouraging me to always do what I felt was natural, no matter what other people thought about it. I remember trying to understand him but most of it flew over my head at the time. The next day at school though I got compliment after compliment on my new haircut…man that was a great feeling.
The hard part of this story is telling it in its entirety. We moved to Aurora not to long after all of this, but before we did my parents received a frantic call from Richard. He and his roommate had received some type of threat. I doubt I’ll ever know the severity of the threat, but it was enough to run them out of town. I have no idea where they moved…for some reason I have a vague memory of it being north, but I doubt I’ll ever know for sure. I wish I could tell him how much he changed my life, and how much he has affected my perspective as an adult. I don’t think I reflected on all of this until after high school. I asked my mom about it and she explained things very frankly to me. She told me that Richard and his partner were gay and that she and my dad had tried to make sure that they had friends in the small town in Kansas where we lived. She said that things had just gotten too difficult for them so they had to find a place to live that might be a little bit more tolerant of them. My mom went on to explain to me that when she was studying animal science at the University of Arkansas that she often had bulls that would only mount other bulls, and when they looked deeper into the causes of this that most of the time all they could find was that the bull had more female hormone than male. Although she didn’t just come out and say it, what I took away from that statement was that the bulls were scientifically a female animal, stuck inside a male animal’s body. That may be wrong, I have no idea, I’m not an animal scientist and I’ve never studied hormones so I have no idea exactly how they can affect behavior…maybe they don’t, but it seems like that might make sense.
I met a girl named Sarah several years ago while working at Old Navy. She had just come out to her parents and unfortunately they had reacted very poorly. I tried to encourage her, but it was obvious that she was completely devastated. I asked her once if she had ever dated in high school. She said that she had a boyfriend her freshman year but she broke up with him after their first kiss. Her memory of that kiss was awful, she described it as the most unnatural and horrible feeling she had ever had. Sarah was very literary just one of the guys, she talked to us about video games and sports, and 90% of the time she came to work in jeans and a t-shirt. I think about her a lot. Not just because I miss my friend, but because I remember how difficult everything was on her. I remember thinking that if there was someone out there that deserved to have an easy life it was her. She was one of the kindest people I have ever met. She never lost her temper, she never judged anyone, she was never flamboyant or in your face. She was shy and humble but never weak or wishy-washy about who she was. To my delight the last time I talked to Sarah she was living in St Louis, she had finished a nursing degree and was a RN at a local hospital and most importantly she had a partner that she was very fond of. She also mentioned that her family had come along and it was easy for me to tell how important that was to her.
I’m not gay. I know that. I’m married to a beautiful woman and I love her company. For me it’s difficult to imagine someone enjoying another person of the same sex in a physical way, but what does that mean? All it means is that it’s hard for me to imagine, there’s nothing more to it than that, there’s no secret somehow hidden in simplicity of the statement. People are people, and we are all born innocent.
Yesterday marked what I consider to be a wonderful day in American society. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was one of the most completely backward and un-American policies in our history. I’m not going to rant about why because I think it’s important for us to move on now. It happened, it was wrong, and as a country we fixed it. Cheers.
