When I was little, my father periodically ordered me onto a beat-up black stool, tied a towel around my neck and sheared my head slick and clean, just like a sheep.
In “kid years,” this ritual lasted forever, dragging on through middle school, inspiring the inexplicable but endearing nickname “lady,” bestowed upon me by much-larger and meaner upperclassmen.
At that time I lacked the killer instinct and punching-flurry strength so carefully honed by my current training regimen of eating and watching TV.
In my lifetime, there perhaps has never been so happy a day as the one where I plopped into a professional barber’s chair, leaned back and said, quite calmly: “Don’t cut it all off!”
There wonderful memories of yesteryear drifted back recently while I sat in the A&A Barber Shop at Casa Linda Plaza, itself a throwback to the days of traditional barber shops.
Guess what? I was there watching my two young sons beg for crew cuts.
And where am I going with all of this, you might ask?
Nowhere in particular. It’s just summer, and it’s hot, and any time I wander near a barber shop, that summer breeze blowing across my now naturally thinning scalp conjures up old memories… .
