Everybody should have a rebel hair photo in his past

Whenever we need a good laugh at our house, we drag out Dad’s college pictures.

Yes, that’s me with about 4 pounds of hair. Not so much long as it was wide. Black, with waves big enough the Beach Boys could surf. And, of course, sideburns down to there. Eat your heart out, Elvis.

The boys thought I was quite the rebel. Till I showed them a whole bunch of my buddies with the same big hair. Same sideburns.

Actually, we were all rebels.

You see, our hair came of age just after the Brylcreem era. Some of you remember the commercials from the ’50s (if you don’t, Google one at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6F4GtyRfto):

Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya

Brylcreem, you’ll look so debonnaire

Brylcreem, the gals’ll all pursue ya

They’ll love to run their fingers through your hair.

It was my brothers’ theme song. That’s why, on all their high school graduation pictures, they have the slicked back, neat, just-combed look. It was the Brylcreem (or Wildroot or Vitalis) that kept each of those hairs locked into place in perpetuity. But I’m sure it took more than a little dab to get it that way. I think they used to buy it by the quart. 10W-30.

In their day, they were cool. They just wanted to capture that James Dean-Kookie from “77 Sunset Strip” look. Ed “Kookie” Burns was the guy who invented the two-handed comb technique that I still employ today. He used one hand to hold the comb (which he used constantly) and run it through his slick hair, and the other hand to follow it. The second hand rarely actually touched the hair, it just cruised about 1/8 of an inch above the hair. Man-oh-man, did Kookie look cool. (Check him out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gDT2Xk5-Oo) Drove all those ’50s girls wild.

He’s the reason so many boys wanted to grow up to be parking lot attendants.

Fortunately for me, the Beatles came along just at the right time. Their mop-tops didn’t use a little dab of anything and girls would have killed to run their fingers through their hair. It didn’t take us long to figure our that grease was on the skids.

That’s where my college pictures came in.

As I recall, the routine was wake up, wash the hair, forget about it. Whatever happened, happened. Shake and bake.

In my case, that usually resulted in hair that some say resembled a football helmet, with sideburns for a chin strap. I guess it was a lot thicker than Ringo’s but still, I wasn’t about to put a little dab of anything on it.

Now I’m worried that our young people won’t have any hair pictures to laugh about down the road.

Most kids’ hair is so short. They look so clean cut. Where is the rebel in that?

Every time I turn around, our youngest son is getting a haircut. About three to every one that I get. The barber should charge him half because he’s done in a couple of snips.

It’s just a shade longer than the burr I used to have as a kid. The cool guys with flat tops would slather on some Butch Wax to make it stand up in front. I didn’t have to do that. I had that big cowlick in front that would make it stand up no matter what I did to try to persuade it to lie down.

I get some encouragement these days when I see boys with the occasional mohawk, those who get designs cut into their hair and the ones who get their hair cut short, then use some fancy-schmancy styling mousse to get it to stand straight up, like spikes. It looks a little too greasy to me, so my advice is “Hey, guys, a little dab’ll do ya.”

I know they will never listen.

They’re such rebels.

This story was originally published July 18, 2015 at 4:04 AM with the headline "Everybody should have a rebel hair photo in his past."