Like most people, my hair has commanded much of my attention over the years. It didn’t begin that way. As an infant, I came into this world bald, probably with only a wisp of blonde hair. With no photos of my infant existence to be found anywhere in family memorabilia, the nature of my coiffure at birth is a pure guess. Still, I insist with 100 percent certainty that I was, in fact, born, despite a lack of pictural documentation. Yes, I do have a copy of my birth certificate, and I have lived life assuming that piece of paper concerns my birth and not someone else’s.

My hair grew over time, sprouting in pure white, sporting a cowlick in the upper part of my head at the back. The grain of the pelt went from left to right but took a distinctive, untamed swirl that launched out with a rebellious, adventurous spirit. Dad, being of proud army background, equipped with his incisive weapon, made war on the battleground of my head every few weeks, flattening the top in military style down to about an inch. I can still feel his warm breath in my face and his upper teeth showing through tense lips as he eyed up close the evenness and balance of his work.

During the Brylcreem era of my teenage years, my hair grew out longer but still well above the ear and clean shaven at the neck. A black comb became a constant content in my back pocket until I called on it to glide through my blonde mane, arranging the neat parallel strands from one side to the other, careful to keep the side part precise. No hair spray for me that the gals used, but the manly, slightly slicked down, nonchalant look that I imagined made me cool.

In college, all hair let loose. Still blonde but a touch sandier, I embraced the counter-cultural, non-conformist period of unrest just coming into full swing in the late sixties. My clean-cut, preppy look gave way to jeans and long hair as I tried to discover my individuality, along with everyone else who wore jeans and long hair. We all were to resist being put in a box and living by the older generation’s rule. The sexual revolution was in full swing, peace marches proliferated, and pot (a.k.a. marijuana, weed) was almost universal among college students. Yes, the time of the baby boomers was wild, and we would wear our hair the way we wanted, period!

At one point, my hair drooped down to my shoulders, the part had migrated to the top center, and a colorful headband kept it all in place. I aspired to be a weekend hippy, at least to sport the image. However, a hair crisis descended on me when I was looking to land a summer job at a lumber mill on the Oregon coast about 30 miles from college. My friend who had worked there the previous summer arranged an interview for me but warned that I should cut my hair shorter. His was really, really short. So, reluctantly I had a couple of inches trimmed from my locks (hypocritically giving in to the pressure to conform), donned my best clothes and set off for my interview. It all went well but ended with this jarring comment: “You will need to get your hair cut if you are going to work here.” I can’t remember the exact wording, but it was my first exposure to what might be called blue-collar rednecks. I had heard stories of guys who cornered hippies and cut their hair off. It was a very good paying job, more than any other part-time job I had ever had. I was not a full-fledged hippie, and was willing to shorten my shag a bit, but the thought of truncating it to a preppy cut freaked me out. The hair was more important than the job and so I ended up all the poorer with a job picking hops at an experimental research farm associated with the college—at half the pay. The affection for my long hair cost me a lot!

Graduation from college and then into the working world led to a full head of hair, down past the ears but no longer to the shoulders. Full-bodied, sandy-blonde, with a swig continuously falling onto my forehead. In the work environment doing research for Cornell Aeronautics Laboratory, not much attention was given to people’s hair, but a coat and tie were required for the men.

I inherited my father’s genetic disposition to a receding hairline, which I sometimes covered over with the middle part again. In time, and after being married for a few years, my wife began noticing a bald spot growing where the top of my head curved downward to the back of my head. My full and wonderful head of hair was not giving up recessionary ground, but it was moving to join up with the bald spot. As with all things that happen gradually, the continuum of growing sparseness did not have a definitive beginning, but it took no rocket scientist to know where this was all going.

Some men compensate for hair loss as it comes, taking it in stride. That might mean coming to the naturally endowed Caesar-like crown encircling the head part way down from a chrome dome. Another style involves combing long hair from the back all the way over the top and to the front, covering the offending wide-open plateau. Still another, favored by my father, is the side comb-over method. This version is a bit more sophisticated, growing the hair long on one side (down to shoulder length or so) and then brushing it up over the top and to the other side. However, I can’t forget the image of my father coming up out of the water when swimming, the long hair falling to its natural side and hanging half-way down his neck. My entire family forbid me to do any of these.

So, what to do? I went with the scorched-scalp polished look. Better to not just surrender to my dying follicles but to embrace the inevitable, to own it as my look. Now, I proudly sport a completely shaved cranium. No longer any fuss. I’ve learned all the quips about God making a few perfect heads and the rest He covered with hair. Or I can now comb my hair with a washcloth. And a men’s magazine (I read in a doctor’s waiting room) ran an article quoting research that photos of bald men conveyed a sense of authority, a real manly look. How could I resist?

Surprisingly, shaving one’s head is not as simple as it seems. At first, my wife would do the honors once a week using a standard Wahl electric shaver. Then I tried lathering up my head and using a razor—a much closer cut, but messy and time-consuming, especially working backward in a mirror. Now, I’ve discovered skull shavers, which simplify the entire process and make it easy to maintain a good-looking, clean-shaven, shiny bald head!

Some of the comments along the way have been interesting. An old preacher could not get past that I had gone bald. It seemed that he wanted to say it was wrong, but he knew he didn’t have any basis for passing such a moral judgment. Another friend told me that with my light skin and face, a bald head made me look naked. But I’ve stayed with it, and I like my lack of hair. No comb to carry around, no hair struggle on windy days, no matted hair after wearing a hat, and best of all, no waking up to a bad-hair day!

How much of our lives are taken up with small and relatively insignificant things? This story may seem superficial (though hopefully entertaining), but I am reminded of something Jesus Christ taught, using hair to explain how much God cares about us:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:29–31)

Well, with age and thinning hair (sometimes disappearing), the Lord doesn’t need to count as high, but His care has not diminished, even in the most minute details of our lives!