Hair today...gone tomorrow

I am a fervent dreamer, I’ve mentioned it before in this here blog. My dreams are usually a perplexing collection of misadventures far from home...trying to find my way home...running from airplanes crashing...and an occasional, erotic flying dream (the latter not as often of late!) But last night, I had one of my many reoccurring dreams not involving my being lost in a strange land. I dreamed about my hair falling out...even moreso than it already has! Details in a moment.

One of my favorite TV shows of all time was The Dick Van Dyke Show. One of my favorite episodes from that was the one in which Dick was overly preoccupied with his concern about losing his hair. He perceived a noticeable loss of follicle one morning, and the rest of the show he “freaked” out...including having a wacky dream about it. Someone advised him to put salad oil in his hair, wrap a towel around his head, and sleep on it. In his dream, he wakes up in the morning with a head of cabbage for hair! It was a crack up. Laura is laughing at his predicament like a devil’s minion. He then supposedly wakes up again and tells Laura about it (Ah, Laura Petrie...another vibrant childhood fantasy of mine that just won’t go away...I digress). She comforts him in her usual, Mary Tyler Moore way, calming him down. He is still wearing the towel turban. He goes in the bathroom and screams...his head is now completely bald. The scene fades to Dick waking up for the third time, and all is well with his hair, he and Laura laugh about it from their p.c. twin beds...cue theme song to commercial.

My hair dream last night was not quite as humorous as the one written by Carl Reiner for The Dick Van Dyke Show, but it is mildly amusing that I continue to have these themed dreams. My follicle fairy tales have run the gamut...from me having Fabio hair to my hair falling out in large chunks and weird patterns. I guess that is why they call it pattern baldness. Anyway, my hair has been falling out for a number of years. My actual first notice of this came at the age of 25 (I’m 56 now). I had been talked into getting my hair permed. Yes, friggin’ permed! Losts of guys did it in the mid-70s...didn’t they? Well, I did. As a side note, it made me look so much like Gabriel Kaplan (remember Welcome Back Kotter?), that little kids would run up to me and say, “Mommy, mommy...it’s Kotter...it’s Mr. Kotter!” So for a few months, that is how I wore my hair, in a tight, almost Afro-like perm...until it started falling out. Each morning I would notice wods of my nice, curly dark brown hair stuck to my comb and in the sink. I thought this was caused by the perm, so I ceased this practice immediately. My hair grew out again, with the usual unmanageable waves, and all was well in Skip Hair Land...for a few years anyway.

Cut to five years ago. Soon after I turned fifty, I noticed my hair line had receded noticeably in front. And worse, there was a bald spot on back of my head where once was that swirl one has in that area. The hairless circle was smooth as a baby’s ass and about three inches across. Talk about screwing up how I combed my hair, it was disturbing at best. I found myself trying to rearrange what hair I had left on top to the extent that it now looked like one of those comb-over affairs. It looked like an old man’s hairdo! This ain’t happening to me, no way. So...that is when I decided to shave my head. And I did shave my head, every day for about five years. Afterall, I was riding a Harley and it was much more convenient for the helmet-hair issue. Life went on. Sure I looked a lot like Dr. Evil from Austine Powers movies, but everyone told me it looked “right” on me. My scalp still was somewhat prestine...no scars from splitting open my head in childhood bicycle incidents. It looked and felt O.K. Factor in the goatee, and I appeared to be a large, Harley-riding bad-ass. If I can’t look like Vinnie Barbarino, I’ll look like a professional wrestler...who knew?

Then, a few months ago...I simply decided that enough was enough. I decided to grow my hair out...just to see what was left. One of my hopeful theories was that while I was shaving my head bald, my hair had somehow restored itself, gotten thicker again (a scenario I had heard on a talk show about hair loss I think). So now after a few months...I got hair again. Not to the extent to which I had hoped...but hair. And thicker hair...where there still was hair! None of it had restored itself, but it has gotten thicker, more wirey, more wavey...and more grey. Although I still possess very, very dark brown (almost black in the winter) hair, it is now flecked with grey a bit. You see, evidently you inherit your hair gene from your paternal grandmother. And she had thick, wavey, grey-flecked hair until the end. Being a male, one must realize that the hair gene also contains the baldness gene...in most cases surfacing only in males. Voila...thick, dark, wavey hair with a pattern baldness effect near the back of my head...thinning on top...and a receded hairline. Might I still be able to grow a poneytail?

It still remains to be seen how far I will take this new found interest in the length of my hair. It is over my ears, and steadily creeping down the back of my neck. It is, indeed, very wavey and a touch thicker than my younger years. I simply comb it straight back out of the shower (no blow drying any longer, I don’t want to give it more reason to fall out more than it has).

Many of the people close to me have commented that I have nice hair, "Stop shaving your head...but you’re not growing a friggin’ poneytail...are you?" Don’t know yet...we’ll see.

Concerning my latest hair dream last night? While combing my hair in the morning, my newly grown, longer locks started falling out in chunks again...a lot. I had woke up nearly totally bald on top...with one difference. The image in the mirror looked like Fabio! Yes...I dreamed I was a balding Fabio last night...with long, wavey tresses on the side and back...and only a dozen or so long hairs left on top. It was disturbing (again) to say the least.

Will I be one of those past-middle-aged nearly bald guys with a poneytail and a beer gut, driving an old Porsche, and getting courtesy smiles from young girls? Who knows? But I do have control over the beer gut and the hair length. I’m working on the gut. I’m growing my hair to whatever length I desire. I drive an old Porsche. But there ain’t nothin’ I can do about my hair going bye bye. I pledged many years ago that I would never augment my hair in the form of a “rug” or surgery. Neither one of those ideas is a viable alternative to baldness in my book. Besides, guys who do that are not fooing anyone. And I certainly don’t want to have that God awlful looking doll hair that implants give you!

And they say that women are vain!