Tuesday the SIEDC had an all day conference at the Hilton. There were many speakers, The Borough President, the Attorney General, the Mayor, and all of the other important people that you would expect to be there, and then some.
Anyway since I have trouble hearing, I skipped the speeches, and just walked around the trade show, picked up some free hi-lighters, sugar free mints, a yo yo, a fly swatter, and a whole lot of other stuff, but the best was a coupon for a free haircut at Paul Mitchell’s Partners on New Dorp Lane.
And man does that bring me back.
Haircuts, and Hair, were always big issues in my life.
Being a child of the 1950’s. (not withstanding Rebel without a Cause, and Marlon Brando’s The Wild One, and the beatniks’), the mode of the country, was to fit in, to conform.
People were buying cape cods, that all looked alike, row after row of the same.
And men got crew cuts (or flat tops).
But growing up, the cool people wore black leather jackets and had DA’s (hair that was pulled down in the front, like Kooky on 77 Sunset Strip). But my father wanted to conform (boy did he change in his old age), so he insisted that I have a crew cut. And what was worse was that he would take me to the barber college to get my haircut. I still remember being jabbed and cut with scissors and combs, by smelly little men who didn’t speak English, trying to become Barbers.
Other times we would go to the barber on Watchogue Road. My grandfather put into his lease that he had to give my grandfather a free hair cut once a week. But my grandfather was bald. So I guess what he did was shave the back of his neck. Because of that, he never raised the rent, so long as he got his free haircut once a week.
I remember my last haircut at the barber college. It was after Election Day 1965. I was working for Howard Samuels who ran for Lt. Governor, (later he became Howie the Horse and started OTB, I became assistant to the President of OTB, but that’s another story). Anyway I was 14 or just turned 15 (my birthday is in November). and we lost the election, I was sad, and my father took me to the Barber College for a haircut. I went from sad to miserable. I went back to school the next day and got laughed at for my ridiculous hair cut.
After that my haircuts were less frequent. I graduated high school, lost a bunch of weight, went to college, got a car, and let my hair grow. The late 60’s.
In August 1969 I was on the staff at the original Woodstock. It was called an Aquarian Expedition, the Woodstock, Music and Art Festival. I was on the staff of the art show. My hair was just beginning to get some decent length, but the week after Woodstock, my brother got married, so I had to get a haircut. My last haircut by a barber. (I have my Woodstock staff pass framed hanging in my kitchen).
After my brothers’ wedding, I stopped cutting my hair again. And then the war in Vietnam came home. May 4, 1970, I had been at a weekend long rock festival at SUNY New Paltz with a new old car that I had just gotten, an Austin Healy Sprite. On Monday, May 4th, 1970 I drove straight to school from New Paltz, and in those days I didn’t listen to the news, only Rock Music. I arrived at school and was confronted with the news that National Guardsmen had shot and killed 4 students at Kent State. I was pretty shaken up, being a hippie and all, so I went to see the dean, who was a good guy. I asked him about starting a strike in support of our brothers and sisters at Kent State, and he told me that I had to be an officer of a recognized student organization in order to start a strike, and have use of the mimeograph machine to make flyers. He also gave me a list of the Recognized Student Organizations- (I graduated from St John's University, Brooklyn Campus, which was a 12 story and a two story building in downtown Brooklyn on Schermerhorn Street and Boerum Place that are now condos. The year I graduated, 1971, it closed down and moved to Staten Island).
First I approached the Peace Organization. They wanted no part of a strike- “we’ll only get into trouble”. Anyway, I checked out the list, and to make a long story short, I became the Vice President of B-SASI (Black Students against Social Injustice), and started the strike by handing out flyers by the elevators, closed down the school, caught an outside agitator trying to cause trouble stealing sandwiches in the cafeteria (held him for the Police), bought and sold apples. One guy took out his guitar, and we sang folk songs. It was nice and peaceful.
Anyway, some of you might remember, President Johnson then closed down the universities, so that there would be a national cool down. That Saturday I was at school, (Remember this is a 12 story office building in down town Brooklyn) at a meeting discussing the proposed March on Washington , and who walks into the room, but my father who comes up to me and says
“Hey- how did the guys at the door know who I was? where you were? and by the way, here is your draft notice”!
Now my father and I hadn’t been getting along. He kept enlisting me into the National Guard, and I kept trying to fail the physicals. It got to the point where at least once a month I was at a National Guard physical.
The list to get into the National Guard during the Vietnam days of 1970 was impossible. My father was a very important person, who never asked anything of anyone for himself, waited until I was draft age and then must have called in all of his favors, but every month, another physical.
My son Jacob, inherited his fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers’ hair genes and brains, is a dean's list student at Penn State, and a film major. Jake shaves his head. My other son Zack, who is blessed with beautiful hair, also wears it short. Go figure. Anyway I once suggested to Jake that he make a film- "Daddy- what did you do during the war?"
You are in the middle of my war story.
But unbeknownst to my father, I went to the Christian Brothers against the war, on 18th Street, in Union Square, which was the heart of the anti-Vietnam War movement (the building). There they had a book, the surgeon general's report on issues that they don't want to deal with in combat (otherwise known as 4-F or 1-Y).
After writing all of the gory details, I decided to delete them and just tell you that after the army told me that they didn’t want me, I decided that it was time to clean up my act and get it together.
Which I did.
So, I went on one of the many great diets of my life, I burned the one pair of jeans, the blue work shirt, and the torn sweater, painted work boots, that I wore every day, and bought new clothes.
And then, I made an appointment to cut my hair at Paul Mitchell’s on St Marks Place, Greenwich Village.
Paul Mitchell was the original “unisex” hair place. You walk in and the music is blasting, and everyone there has a layer cut hair cut- like Rod Stewart, and everyone was dressed in high fashion of the day. On September 18, 1970, I got my haircut (and in those days there was quite a lot of it, and it was very long), It was also the day that Jimmy Hendrix died which has absolutely nothing to do with the story except that is how I know the date.
Well my hair was long from then until last year, when Randy Lee made me cut it.
Thank you Randy.
But anyway, today I went back to Paul Mitchell, now on New Dorp Lane, and it's a "Barber College"
I have come full circle.
………………to be continued
