Many years ago my mother-in-law made this remark: “Hair is a problem at any age." I think she was referring to women and girls, but men and boys can be included, somewhat. Even from the beginning of time no doubt. In Bible times David’s son, Absalom, got his hair caught in some tree branches, and Sampson let Delilah cut his hair, both episodes ending in disaster.
John was born in March of 1945 in St. Joseph,
Missouri. Franklin D. Roosevelt died the same day that we brought John
home. My mom had come to our house to stay a few days, so she, Mary, and
Nancy were there to greet us.
Johnnie (as he was called for some time) had dark hair, enough
to cover his head pretty well, but I believe he was about two years old when he
had his first hair cut. Franklin took him to his barber, Squint
Pearce. When the barber turned on the electric clippers for the finishing
touch, Johnnie wanted out of there so he raised so much of a ruckus that
several of the townspeople gathered around outside the window. I was not
there at the time but Nancy, his little seven-year-old sister, remembers it
quite well. The story goes that by the time he was old enough for a crewcut, or
whatever it was called, he'd say to her "Tancy, feel my hair
cut!"
During the years when he was small, times were still hard.
There had been rationing of sugar, gas, coffee, and other commodities. However,
we had electricity by the time Johnnie was born. There was a period of
time that I was the barber of our household. I remember quite well
when John was ready to start high school he told me that I would not need to
cut his hair anymore. I soon learned why when he came home one day with
a flat top-wing hair cut. I will have to admit that was a shocker. I
can't recall what I might have said, but his dad said plenty when he mistook
John’s Brylcreem for toothpaste once. There was quite a lot of excitement for a
little bit. I'm sure John found a different place for his greaser’s crème after
that.
This incident happened in the late fifties or early
sixties. John copied this hair style after his three young uncles,
Art, John, and Gene Fisher. The style was to use butch wax, brylcreem, and
wildroot creme oil to slick the hair back and call themselves
greasers. That seemed a little far out to we oldies, no doubt. He used
something called peach pomade which looked like Vaseline but smelled good. He
copied that after Jack, Mary’s husband, who had a thick head of hair and was a
greaser for a time.
In the early eighties John grew side burns and his hair looked like
Elvis (not bad!). Then later still a beard. Now his hair has turned to silver, which
he took after my dad who also had a nice head of hair.
