“Anyone
can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man - there's
your diamond in the rough.”
(Larry
David)
“I
don't care if they call me baldie or chrome dome. God took an eraser and
brushed my head clean. I'd rather be bald on top than bald inside.”
(Joe
Garagiola)
My three sons are fairly decent
fellows . . . nice guys; but, I am pretty sure that they blame me. Though they never complain, gripe, moan, or
whine . . . I am pretty sure that the balding of their heads they blame on
me. I am pretty sure that they lament
under their breath. I am the cause of
their balding . . . I have been going bald since the age of twenty-one. As nice as they are, I see their resentment
in their eyes when I take off my ball cap.
According to statistics, fifty percent
of the male population enters into the balding stage at some point in their
lives . . . in other words, fifty percent of the male population is going to
experience baldness before they kick the bucket. Unfortunately some of us have been dealing
with the issue of apolecia a heck of a lot longer than the rest of our
species. The fact is that half of us
males are going to go bald.
Now I have been dealing with the
receding hair line issue . . . the going bald issue . . . for a long, long
time. I have read and heard just about
everything that one could ever hear when it comes to baldness . . . blame it on
the individual’s mother’s family . . . curse the hair care products that
parents made us use . . . I have heard it all.
Yet, the bottom line is that men are going to get bald, and it is about
time men sucked up and accepted the fact!
First of all, with fifty percent of the male population having some form of baldness . . . well, there is money to be made. According to statistics, the hair loss industry is worth a whopping 3.5 billion dollars a year. Primarily the money that is being made is in the hair restoration business . . . a pretty useless and worthless industry. Yet, vanity rules . . . billions of dollars are spent in the hope that one day there will be . . . well, hair Okay, guys, put the money back in the wallet. Many of the scams produce nothing more than empty wallets and bank accounts. The majority of the products being hawked are worthless.
I was told, when I started balding,
that baldness comes from the mother’s side of the family. When I looked at my mother . . . well, I
never saw any balding. If a person’s
mother’s side of the family had a lot of bald men, the curse was passed
on. The truth of the matter is that none
of us can blame our mothers or their families for being bald. Odds are that those of us who are balding can
blame both sides of the family. Baldness
is an equal opportunity curse . . . it doesn’t really care which side of the
family it comes from . . . falling hair is music to whichever side of the
family has baldness. Hey, it is a crap shoot
. .. either you keep your hair or you lose it.
Of course I am getting older. I may have started watching the hair recede
when I hit twenty-one, but at the same time I have started to age. With aging comes gray hair . . . or in my
case, white hair. I don’t know who is
winning . . . the hair falling out or the hair turning gray. Long ago I heard that plucking out gray hairs
would induce hair growth . . . three to one is what I heard. Turns out it is not true. In fact, plucking grey hairs only speeds up
the balding process. I never could
believe this story . . . at the rate that my hair was turning gray, if I had
plucked them in hopes that more hair would grow, I would have been a
full-fledge chrome dome years ago. Telly
Savalas would have nothing on me . . . except having a better lollipop stash
than I had. If I had embraced this myth,
I would have been completely bald years ago.
Now my father, and my sons
grandfather, swore that there were several reasons that I was going bald . . .
of course he was speaking as a man who had a full head of hair. First he blamed it on the shampoo that he
bought for the family to use on a daily basis . . . Head and Shoulders. Once his
sons started balding he remarked that it was that particular shampoo that
caused the hair loss. Of course Procotor and Gamble would have never
admitted to such a theory . . . except that I hear they have a whole laboratory
with bald mice they experimented on to test the effectiveness of their Head and Shoulders shampoo . . . they
are all bald, but—by God—they do not have any dandruff. Though there may be some truth to that
understanding . . . any chemical could create the same results.
The other thing that my father liked
to blame the baldness he was witnessing on his eldest son was ball caps. Now I do not know which came first . . .
baldness or the ball cap. Because I had
a receding hair line, I wore ball caps . . . still do. When I am not working in the church or at the
university, the ball cap is the key piece to my wardrobe. And, though it is true that I have a little
fop on the top of my head . . . that separates the majority of hair from the
rest . . . the ball cap did not create my baldness. Primarily it is ball caps that keep my balding head from getting
sunburnt . . . which keeps me from getting flakey skin and having to use Head and Shoulders. Ball caps have nothing to do with hair loss
unless a person wears them so tight that it pulls off hair when removing.
For years I believed my father. I quit using Head and Shoulders years and years ago . . . and, I started wearing
lots of white shirts. Can’t find dandruff
on a white shirt. I never quit wearing
baseball caps . . . they kept me from getting sunburnt on my bald spots . . .
plus I have a lot of really cool baseball caps.
The bottom line is that baldness happens no matter what a person does.
BUT!
I say, “BUT!” That does not mean
that any male in his right mind wouldn’t attempt to halt the onslaught of male
baldness without whatever weapons he could find. There are as may remedies for male baldness
as there are bald men . . . remember, 3.5 billion dollars a year. There is Rogaine
. . . there has been some success, but for the most part it makes what hair
balding men have greasy and smelly.
There is Propecia which is a
drug that promises to block hair loss. I’d
love to give it a chance, but I have passed the point of no return. There are natural supplements . . . which are
like vitamins that promise hair recovery . . . again, just a myth.
It is a fact that stress causes
baldness. Stress can come from just
about anywhere . . . the environment . . . to the stuff you use to wash your
hair . . . to the relationships one has in his or her life . . . to the way
that one even combs one’s hair. Since I
am constantly worrying about whether or not my sons are going to blame me for
their hair loss . . . I am under a lot of stress. Working in an office with eight women . . .
stress. Attempting to juggle two jobs .
. . stress. Wondering whether or not I
am the epitome of Brad Pitt . . . stress.
Stress causes hair loss . . . whether I am pulling my hair out or it is
dropping out . . . stress in a major factor in losing hair.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo . . . you
can either accept it or fight it. I am
cheap. Because I am cheap, I choose not
to fight my receding hair line. I refuse
to spend money to retard the loss of hair . . . to possibly kick start new hair
growth . . . or to plug in hair rows to create an illusion of hair. Let the hair fall! Darn if I am going to let my hair dictate the
way I live life.
Someone once said that God made only
so many perfect heads . . . on the rest God put hair. I count myself among the blessed as I near
the state of perfection. I appreciate
the graciousness of my three sons . . . and, I apologize for whatever crisis I
have a part in when it comes to their own baldness. I am sure, if they take the time to actually research
the topic, they will come to understand . . . understand that good ol’ Dad—in all
of his glorious baldness—had nothing to do with their baldness. It was a crap shoot . . . or as Doris Day
used to sing, “Que sera, sera.”
In the end it really does not matter
whether or not I am bald. What matters
is what is on the inside. I am a
diamond in the rough . . . It is what is under the hood that counts. I am a worthy adversary of Brad Pitt
underneath . . . just don’t let me blind you when the light hits my chrome
dome!
1 comment:
I agree with most of the stuff you said. Male baldness isn't always a mark of age. It can be a real medical condition too. That only means that we can do something about it. We may choose to march into our golden years with that type of look or we can do otherwise. It's never too late, right?
Byron Brewer @ Knight and Sanders
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