An Apple Core, a Toilet: Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood by Tom Purcell Page B
Book: An Apple Core, a Toilet: Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood by Tom Purcell
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Authors: Tom Purcell
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ladies’ hair salon!”
“It’s a unisex salon.”
“A uni-what?”
“It is a salon that cuts hair for both sexes.”
"You got your hair cut at a women’s salon?"
“A unisex salon.”
His mouth was still full of burger and Pabst Blue Ribbon. He forgot he still needed to chew for a few moments.
He didn't know a lot of things. But he knew, as did all men who were 25 or older in 1974, that if you let your son get his hair cut at a ladies’ salon, it wouldn’t be long before you came home to find him wearing women’s makeup and undergarments.
He finally remembered to chew, but he couldn’t break his stare.
"But it's parted down the middle," he said.
***
I nearly abandoned my David Cassidy hair after dinner that night, but I was so eager to cover my floppy ears that I was willing to endure any amount of humiliation and embarrassment.
I assumed a healthy dose of mockery would await me at school that next Monday, but the mocking never came.
Something totally unexpected did happen: The girls in my class were looking at me differently.
I certainly wasn’t transformed from dork status to thefifth grade’s most popular kid, but I was greeted with a gentle affirmation, a hint of gratitude, even a subtle acceptance among some of my female classmates that my bold fashion move was “cool.”
Of course, the very next week, Michael Kissinger got his hair parted down the middle, and it wasn’t long before the dam burst and most every boy in our school — every boy on the planet — was rushing to unisex hair salons to be embrace the David Cassidy shag.
By the ninth grade, almost EVERY boy in my high school class — 300 or so — was sporting the Cassidy shag — easily confirmed by looking through my ninth-grade yearbook.
***
I would wear my David Cassidy cut for many years afterward — until I was 30, in fact.
As it happened, my best friend's fiancé — whom I'd not yet met — was a flight attendant. She was to be the attendant on my flight from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles one night.
She had asked my friend to describe me so she could recognize me in the air.
"That's easy," my friend had told her. "He'll be the only one on the plane with his hair parted down the middle like David Cassidy."
So embarrassed was I about my lack of hipness, I went to the nearest upscale hair salon after landing in Los Angeles. My stylist was a young, highly fashionable L.A. lady.
I told her about my predicament — how I'd come to have the David Cassidy hair and how I now wanted something more current.
It was 1992 and, by then, the rock-star look of the ‘80s was long gone — mullets were out, too, thank goodness — and a more minimalist style was in: short hair, slicked straight back.
There would be no more need for a blow dryer, she explained. I was in!
And so it was that she washed my hair, then conditioned it. She clipped and cut, styled and set. She washed my hair again, then applied a contemporary mix of goops and ointments, so she could slick my hair straight back.
“What do you think?” she said, as she spun my chair around so I faced the mirror.
I was shocked by what I saw.
I looked like Eddie Munster.
Don't Take Her for Granted
I used to take her for granted.
When my five sisters and I were babies in her womb, she never took so much as an aspirin for a headache. She never put anything in her body but the nutrients we needed to grow, and I took that for granted.
As a child, my world was rock solid because of her. She put our needs so far before her own that we didn't know that she had needs. She loved us without condition. I was so unaware of the fear and pain less fortunate children suffer that I didn't know such concepts existed. She worked hard to create that world, and I took that for granted.
As a teen, I gave her grief. I told her how wrong she was about religion, child
“It’s a unisex salon.”
“A uni-what?”
“It is a salon that cuts hair for both sexes.”
"You got your hair cut at a women’s salon?"
“A unisex salon.”
His mouth was still full of burger and Pabst Blue Ribbon. He forgot he still needed to chew for a few moments.
He didn't know a lot of things. But he knew, as did all men who were 25 or older in 1974, that if you let your son get his hair cut at a ladies’ salon, it wouldn’t be long before you came home to find him wearing women’s makeup and undergarments.
He finally remembered to chew, but he couldn’t break his stare.
"But it's parted down the middle," he said.
***
I nearly abandoned my David Cassidy hair after dinner that night, but I was so eager to cover my floppy ears that I was willing to endure any amount of humiliation and embarrassment.
I assumed a healthy dose of mockery would await me at school that next Monday, but the mocking never came.
Something totally unexpected did happen: The girls in my class were looking at me differently.
I certainly wasn’t transformed from dork status to thefifth grade’s most popular kid, but I was greeted with a gentle affirmation, a hint of gratitude, even a subtle acceptance among some of my female classmates that my bold fashion move was “cool.”
Of course, the very next week, Michael Kissinger got his hair parted down the middle, and it wasn’t long before the dam burst and most every boy in our school — every boy on the planet — was rushing to unisex hair salons to be embrace the David Cassidy shag.
By the ninth grade, almost EVERY boy in my high school class — 300 or so — was sporting the Cassidy shag — easily confirmed by looking through my ninth-grade yearbook.
***
I would wear my David Cassidy cut for many years afterward — until I was 30, in fact.
As it happened, my best friend's fiancé — whom I'd not yet met — was a flight attendant. She was to be the attendant on my flight from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles one night.
She had asked my friend to describe me so she could recognize me in the air.
"That's easy," my friend had told her. "He'll be the only one on the plane with his hair parted down the middle like David Cassidy."
So embarrassed was I about my lack of hipness, I went to the nearest upscale hair salon after landing in Los Angeles. My stylist was a young, highly fashionable L.A. lady.
I told her about my predicament — how I'd come to have the David Cassidy hair and how I now wanted something more current.
It was 1992 and, by then, the rock-star look of the ‘80s was long gone — mullets were out, too, thank goodness — and a more minimalist style was in: short hair, slicked straight back.
There would be no more need for a blow dryer, she explained. I was in!
And so it was that she washed my hair, then conditioned it. She clipped and cut, styled and set. She washed my hair again, then applied a contemporary mix of goops and ointments, so she could slick my hair straight back.
“What do you think?” she said, as she spun my chair around so I faced the mirror.
I was shocked by what I saw.
I looked like Eddie Munster.
Don't Take Her for Granted
I used to take her for granted.
When my five sisters and I were babies in her womb, she never took so much as an aspirin for a headache. She never put anything in her body but the nutrients we needed to grow, and I took that for granted.
As a child, my world was rock solid because of her. She put our needs so far before her own that we didn't know that she had needs. She loved us without condition. I was so unaware of the fear and pain less fortunate children suffer that I didn't know such concepts existed. She worked hard to create that world, and I took that for granted.
As a teen, I gave her grief. I told her how wrong she was about religion, child
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