Week 16 - Did you ever get a crazy haircut, style or color?

For the record, nothing I ever did or do is crazy. I am normal, it's everyone else that I worry about.

I remember being very clean cut growing up. Mom always cut all the boys' hair including Dad's hair. I don't remember if she cut the girl's hair or if they went to someone else. Seems like the girls went to someone up the street and when I started getting particular about my hair Mom had me go to that person once or twice.

I do remember that probably about the time Jason was in junior high or high school he really wanted a perm. Apparently, that was the cool thing. So, one day I remember Mom perming Jason's hair and somehow I got a perm too. I don't recall pushing for a perm, but I may very well have insisted that I have the same "cool" hair cut that my brother had. We ended up having a spike down our part line, and longer curly hair in the back - basically a mullet with curly hair in back. The spike down the part lasted for a while, the mullet (thankfully) did not.

The next hair style I can remember was the bull cut. This was hair shaved up from the bottom with longer hair on top. It started with less of a shave, and went as far and short as we could get Mom to do it, while growing it out as long as we could on top. Eventually the shave went most of the way up with only the hair on the very top of the head remaining. The hair on the top of the head was long enough to fall over the rest of the head. I had this style of cut most of the time through junior high and high school. Everyone on the track and cross-country team had this style of cut and most of us wore bandannas when we ran to keep the hair out of our eyes.

There were quite a few things you could do with long hair. Most often it was our group of girl friends wanting to play with it and braid it when we got together. I remember quite a few times having tons of little tiny braids all over my head.

We didn't play too much with coloring our hair. I really quite liked my dirty blonde hair color. I do remember one time as we went away on a choir trip preparing for the all-state choir, our group of friends decided to dye our hair. The color we got was cherry cola. It supposed to be a dark burgundy color, but with my blonde hair, and our in-experience with coloring hair, it actually ended up being a really ugly deep pink color when my hair was dry. When my hair was wet, it was the cherry cola color (deep burgundy color). I came home to put my tuxedo on and get ready for the concert. Went downstairs, showered and walked out the door without anyone noticing my hair. I don't recall if this was planned. My will testify to this day that I must have sneaked through the house. I don't remember doing that, but I most likely was wearing a hat as I usually did any day I wasn't in school. That night at the concert my hair had the wet look as I had used some product to keep my hair in place - I had to do that whenever I needed my long hair to stay in place at anything formal like church, or a choir concert. Mom and Dad recall trying to pick me out of the all-state choir and being pretty sure that it was me, but my hair being quite red.

One other hair story that I remember was when I was interviewing for my current job at McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah. I had quite the scruffy look going on as I applied. I believe I had some kind of beard and hair that was not only long on top, but long all over. For some reason, I really like my hair long. I recall feeling really good about the interview. I had never had an interview that didn't go well, nor do I recall not getting a job that I applied for up to that point in my life. As I expected, after the interview I got a call back to interview again. As I spoke with the person who would eventually become my boss he went over a few things he wanted me to be prepared to do at the interview. He also made sure that I was aware that Intermountain was a conservative organization. He then asked me point blank if I would be willing to cut my hair if I was offered the job. I assured him that I would be willing to do so. After discussing this with Kelly, we decided to go to get my hair cut. This was a big deal, because she came with me to a hair cutting place to help me pick out a style from the hair magazines to cut my hair to. We found a shorter hair style that we thought would look nice and be a compromise for the long hair. We let the girl cutting my hair know what we were looking for and she went to work. She worked and worked and worked. That included cutting and cutting and cutting some more. It seemed like she went over every inch of my head a few different times. I left with very little hair on my head, and if I recall correctly Kelly was crying. I left everyone interviewing me quite shocked when I walked in the room for my next interview. I looked like a totally new person having "my ears lowered" as Dad always said.

The good thing about hair up to this point is that it still grows back - and it did after my military cut to get a job at the hospital. I've been able to get my hair a little longer again without losing my job. I haven't really had any crazy styles lately, except for on Halloween. We've done most things from curling it up to be big and puffy to dying it jet black and slicking it down.