The photo above shows me with the outrage haircut that was going to “ruin my life”.
After school, in line waiting to board the school bus, and then all the way home, my new celebrity status continued to make me the center of attention. By this time, having told about getting called to the Vice Principal’s Office and being harassed by Mr. Buck so many times, I could repeat my story without much thought. Of course, the day wasn’t over; there was more to come once I got home.
Certainly, my hair did change the direction of my life that day. That morning when I went to school, I had "long hair" just because I liked it. By the time I climbed back on the bus to go home, it had become a matter of individual human rights and principle.
I was a kind, friendly, polite, and trustworthy guy, who didn't cause any trouble, and suddenly, I felt persecuted for no justifiable reason. I thought it would be wrong just to blindly cave in to an authority, if I had done nothing wrong, and it seemed to me that they were using brute power without valid justification.
The struggle intensified when my father got home from work. Naturally, Mr. Buck had called my parents and told them of their son’s deviant behavior. That night, I felt the beginnings of a chasm that began to open up in the relationship I had with my father. Since I felt completely innocent of doing anything wrong and being unjustly persecuted, I had assumed that my father would support me, but I was mistaken.
My crewcut father in his younger years had taken a stand that had gone against popular opinion. During World War II, he was a non-combatant conscientious objector, and because of his moral stand, he had spent his military service working in an Army medical laboratory. Since then however, he seemed to shy away from taking controversial stands. He was a quiet, honest, law-abiding loving man, and when he heard that the school’s vice principal wanted me to get a haircut, that was what he wanted too.
It was a fractious evening of argument and loud debate. In the end, my father drove me down to the barbershop at North Park shopping center and I allowed my hair to be trimmed in the back. That was as much as I was willing to compromise.
First thing the next day, I did as I did as I had been commanded to do, I reported to Mr. Buck's office. When Mr. Buck saw me, he was livid, and he escorted me back into his office again.
“I thought I told you to get your hair cut,” he snorted.
“I did,” I replied.
“It doesn’t look cut to me.” he said.
“I got it trimmed in the back,” I told him.
Then, Mr. Buck, started in again on the mantra of how I was “ruining my life”, by not conforming to the norm, and that I was going to “end up in jail” because of my deviant behavior. Finally in frustration, and having run out of threats and bluster, he told me to go back to class which I was more than happy to do.
A few weeks after my appearance in Mr. Buck’s office, all the hub-bub about my hair had died down, although my popularity, and new status remained high. I was never again to be called down to the office, but I did experience another extraordinary day because of my long hair.
View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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