Crew cut: (n) a haircut in which the hair is very closely cropped.

It was a simple time.

People were determined to keep it that way, even though freedom, complexity and disruption were on the horizon, threatening to alter the beige tint of society with a flash of paisley.

In that brief moment, I lived and breathed and had my childhood.

One of the common things that was completely understood in my small town was the issue of men’s hair.

There were only three choices.

Some very bold youngsters started growing their hair to where it flirted with touching the top of the earlobe. They were subject to ridicule and made a grower of such a frock worthy of mock. They were deemed “hippies” and were considered part of the counterculture threatening to make America diverse.

The second type of hairdo was referred to as “the regular.”

This was where the young man was to get his hair cut as far away from his ears and collar as possible, leaving atop a tiny patch resembling crab grass. Even though it was not hippie, those who sported the regular haircut were suspicious. They were possibly Democrats or homos, which in our village, were both abominable.

Although it was never stated out loud, the only truly acceptable haircut for anyone under the age of eighteen was the crew cut. Matter of fact, if you peruse old rock and roll albums, many of the singers still sported it. It was the same kind of head shaving you would get if you went into the military. It was uniform, with a tiny berm of hair in the front, greased down so as not to become flyaway.

You knew this—whenever you encountered a person with a crew cut, you were staring into the face of a true American who loved God, hated sin and was determined to keep America whatever America was at that particular moment.

At one time I considered getting a crew cut.

However, my face was so chubby I was afraid my cheeks would puff out and I would be caught up in a wind gust and carried away. So I maintained my regular haircut until my senior year in high school, when I began to grow hair on the sides of my head that was long enough to be combed down to cover the tips of my ears when I was away from adults, and combed back to barely pass muster in grown-up world.

It was a foolish time in this country.

A dangerous assertion persisted–that human beings could be stopped and immobilized, avoiding a hairy situation.

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