locks of love

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on February 9, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

“No, you’re not.” My wife said it so quickly, and with such authority, that I was stunned into silence. I had tossed my comment out casually, delicately, as one would a Nerf ball to a small child.

“It shouldn’t take that long,” I replied. “You said so yourself—it grows so quickly.

“You know you’re going to look ridiculous,” she sighed, using her time-tested strategy of allowing me just enough rope to hang myself. Or, more appropriately, enough hair to embarrass myself—which in this case would be a minimum of ten inches. That’s the shortest length for a donation to Locks of Love, a non-profit charity that accepts donations of human hair and money to make wigs for needy children who’ve lost their hair due to medical conditions.

The idea had come to me while thinking of new ways to get my eighth grade language arts classes excited about community service. Middle school students are terrific at raising money for various causes, but I wanted to challenge them to stretch their wings and find additional, novel ways to give. What better way to advertise this than having their middle-aged, follicle-challenged teacher attempt to grow out his hair for the first time since college? After all, almost 80% of all hair donations are made by kids to help other kids.

To appreciate the sheer absurdity of it, one must realize that I’ve maintained a Beetle Bailey buzz cut for the last twenty years. My wife had never seen my hair touch my eyebrows, much less go past my shoulders. Telling her that I planned on growing a ponytail was like telling her I planned to fly to the moon… only more embarrassing. This way, she’d have this wild gray mane accompanying her to every wedding or funeral until I was allowed to cut it.

At the time of my announcement, I hadn’t cut my hair in almost four months. It was with great excitement that I pulled out the measuring tape, thinking the length would probably fall somewhere between Moses and a teenage Andre Agassi.  For someone who’d learned how to shear my own hair because I didn’t think my wife cut it short enough, it felt like my Jim Morrison period. Alas, it turned out to be closer to the retired Agassi—two inches at its longest.

It was time to acknowledge that my hair had long passed its expiration date—my hairline has receded to the point where my forehead has become a five-head. Even I realize that the best I could hope to accomplish was the dreaded Garfunkel, a hairstyle that can best be described as patches of thinning hair clinging desperately to the top and rear of one’s head. Much like Garfunkel’s similarly challenged partner, Paul Simon, my head was never meant to permanently host hair.

Still, I harbored hope that I had one last run in me. I don’t have the money to buy a fire-engine red Porsche, so this seemed like the best option for my mid-life crisis. I looked up the requirements and found that donor hair must be ten inches or longer, clean, devoid of curls, and bundled into a ponytail. The hair cannot be bleached or colored. So far, so good. I figured I’d gut it out for the rest of the school year and cut it in June, maybe at school, and maybe at the hands of my students.

The dream died when I looked into how fast hair can grow—turns out it grows at a rate of around six inches per year. Outside of amazing advances in hair growth technology, the process would take me until late April, 2013. There’s no guarantee my wife wouldn’t strangle me with it long before then

Ironically, the good folks at Locks of Love took the decision off my hands. While they do accept donations of gray hair, they don’t use it in their hairpieces—they sell it to offset their manufacturing costs. Because they only provide hairpieces to children, and mostly young girls at that, they don’t want to send them out looking like Phil Donahue.  It’s a charity, not a wig manufacturer, and the organization shells out $1,000 for each custom-made hairpiece.

So gone are the hoped-for comparisons between me and Russell Crowe, who donated his hair after filming Robin Hood a few years ago. Instead, my goal has become as short as my hair: I’m gunning for hair just long enough to cut and bundle into a short tail. It looks like I might be able to pull off about five inches by the end of the school year. Not exactly rock star length, but long enough to serve a great charity in their efforts to help kids.

On the other hand, if I can find the time to painstakingly glue each strand together, I just might have enough to create my very own Donahue for my old age.