“Crooked”

Life is humbling.  We can’t hit a golf ball as far as we think we should be able to.  We don’t make every sale we propose on.  Grass doesn’t grow from the seed we plant in our yards.  We can’t seem to fold those fitted sheets perfectly even with a college education.

I owe my mother a great debt for teaching me about humility.   It didn’t happen during her lifetime.  She passed away almost thirty-six years ago, but her lesson in humility really took hold over the past twenty years or so.  And while you might debate the intent of her actions and whether they were really purposed to teach me an important lesson, the results are indisputable.

When I was between the ages of three and six years old, I went with my father to the barbershop downtown for haircuts.  It was the classic barbershop of those days.  The red, white and blue pole twirled outside the front door.  The shop had four or five chairs in a row which faced large mirrors.  The shelf in front of that mirror held all sorts of bottles with colored liquids and an assortment of scissors, blades, razors and such.  I never saw anyone sweep the floor but I assume it was done at the end of each day.  Whenever I was there, an assortment of brown, black and mostly gray hair spread out five feet in all directions from each chair.  The waiting area was a row of chairs opposite the mirror wall in a pattern of three chairs, one table, three chairs, one table.  I was never allowed to read any of the magazines that were on the tables, so I spent my time waiting and watching interaction between the barbers and men.

Haircuts before I turned seven never involved scissors.  The electric razor would start on my forehead and proceed back in a straight line until it reached the hairline at the back of my head.  Buzzcuts exposed my oversized head, but since my Dad favored them, I went along.  As a reward, I usually got some special present – I remember getting a sombrero after one cut.

After I turned seven, buzzcuts were out.  I got real haircuts instead.  I wore my hair straight down in those days, no part at all, with my bangs cut just above the eyebrows.  This particular style created one problem, though.  While I could go months between haircuts for my non-bang hair, such an interval would have left me looking like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.  Hence, I needed to have a between-cut trimming of my bangs.

This is where my mother came into the picture.  Mom, like all mothers of that and probably every age, was a Jill-of-all-trades.  She was my doctor, psychiatrist, nutritionist, teacher, investigator, chauffeur, pooping doula (look it up), and of course, barber.  When she was unable to see my eyes anymore, she assumed I was in danger of crashing while riding my bike and thus in need of a trim.

One would assume this would be a fairly straightforward process.  All you had to do was comb the bangs straight down the forehead, and cut them with a pair of scissors without poking the child in the eye.  Probably a one-minute job with no fuss and just a little clean-up.

One would be wrong.

For some reason, my mother determined the kitchen, where all the food in the house was stored and prepared, was the proper place to cut hair.  I sat on a kitchen chair with a towel draped over my shoulders while Mom wetted my bangs.  Since I only bathed once a week in those days, water was somewhat of a foreign substance to my hair.  

I sat terrified, certain the point of the scissors was coming for me.  Mom was getting old, around thirty by then, so her hands were bound to be shaky.  Before the cutting though, I knew there was one more step: Scotch tape.

What role does scotch tape play in this story, you ask?  Well, scotch tape was required to tape my now wet bangs to my forehead so they would stay in place.  Mom pulled a piece of tape about a foot long and placed it across my forehead nearly from ear to ear (I told you I had a huge head as a child!)

Now everything was set.  Mom would start on my right side – since she was right-handed – and make a single cut across my bangs.  Then she would step back, inspect her work, and make a correcting small cut or two until my bangs were as straight as a ruler.

Here are examples of her handiwork:

How could this happen? How could this feat of engineering go so awry? I’d often wondered this for the next twenty or so years. Perhaps I leaned away from my mother as she cut and thus with my tilted head the crooked line across my forehead appeared straight? Maybe Mom thought I parted my hair and thus this was the proper cut for such a hairstyle? Maybe Mom couldn’t tell where my hair ended and my forehead began – I usually had a very dark tan as a child.

Or maybe, Mom was trying to teach me humility.

I realize this sounds like fitting the act into the hypothesis, but humility is such an important character trait, I know Mom would want me to possess it throughout my life.  Humility allows you to learn.  To be a better leader.  To relate to and connect with others.  To see beyond yourself.  To earn respect.  Mom would have wanted this for me.

She decided to give me an early start by cutting my bangs crooked.  And just so I wouldn’t ever forget, she made sure she did it just before my annual class picture was taken, not one year, but two years just in case I ever lost a class picture.  From then on, whenever I look at those pictures, I am humbled.  In fact, sometimes I look at those pictures to be humbled.  When I start feeling like I’ve made it, or done something great, those two class pictures ground me.

I have to admit Mom’s strategy was genius.  If she had lectured me about humility every day from birth until I left for college, I doubt I’d still recall the lesson with such force.  A picture speaks a thousand words, and says them eternally.  Mom knew she wouldn’t be here forever, so she found a way to keep reminding me to be a humble man.  Message received, Mom.