And not a bad idea for some
April 30, 2010 (Friday)
A Florida candidate for governor was criticized this week for paying $124 for a haircut. Reminds me of Clinton’s $200 haircut aboard Air Force One, which, some say, delayed other flights.
At some point in the 1970’s, I think, I started cutting my own hair. I’m not recommending it, and I didn’t do it to save money. I did it the first time because I realized as I looked in the mirror Saturday night that I had procrastinated a little too long and I was going to have to appear before the congregation the next morning looking like somebody who didn’t know how to take care of himself, much less take care of a church. So, I picked up a mirror and carefully did a little trimming. It wasn’t a good haircut, but it looked better than it did before I started clipping.
After that I tried it again, and soon started doing it myself and got better at it. Through the years I have gone through all the trends from short to longer styles, and have generally done pretty well except for one very unfortunate boondoggle. It was so bad that no one commented on it. Now that’s bad. A funny thing happened after that. It had grown out and become a short haircut that didn’t look as bad as it did for a while. But short it was. I went to another town to preach a revival meeting. I couldn’t help but notice that almost every man in the church got a haircut that week. Looking at the back of my head made them think about their hair. I never mentioned the fact that so many were getting haircuts that week and neither did they. Must have been a subconscious thing on their part, but the local barbers profited from it just the same.
How did I manage to mangle that cut? I didn’t quit when I was ahead. Although I wasn’t quite satisfied with what I had done, I was tempted to quit while I was ahead. That’s the time I should have yielded to temptation. “Disastrous” is too kind a word to describe what it finally looked like. There’s even more to the story, but I won’t share it here.
The moral of the story is, “Support your local barber.” Even if I don’t. Do like I say, not like I do.