July 31, 2000
DOWN HOME:
If hair were worth gold, he'd be a poor ol' baldy
___"A picture is worth a thousand words."
___You can bet a photographer wrote those seven words.
___As a person whose tools of trade are words and sentences, I've always taken exception to that bit of popular wisdom. I like the poster a journalist friend used to hang in his office:"A good word is worth a thousand crummy pictures."
MARV KNOX
Editor
___Besides, pictures--whatever they say and however many words they're worth--aren't always accurate.
___Like the picture beside these words, for example. I don't look like that. At least not now.
___The picture is cropped the way it is for a good reason--so the glare off the top of my head won't blind you.
___For a few years now, the wispy remains of my hairline have been more trouble than they're worth. Numerous times, I've told Joanna, "I'd like to just shave this stuff off."
___Well, on the 400-mile return trip from my Aunt Mary's funeral, Jo mentioned Leslie, my cousin's husband, who shares my genetic predisposition for setting hair free.
___"Leslie's hair looked good," Jo said. "You might look good like that too."
___Leslie has what we used to call a buzz. I thought it looked masculine, mature. Instead of looking bald, he looked like he intended to look like that.
___When we got home, I thought about following Leslie's lead. And then I nearly chickened out. That's when Jo had Bruce give me a call.
___Bruce is the coolest guy in our church. "You can do it," he told me. "It's a matter of attitude. And besides, it's just hair. It'll grow back."
___So, I sat in the chair and told Chrissy, "Chop it off." She clamped a No. 3 adjuster on her clippers and went to work. I never knew I had so much hair until I saw it all in my lap.
___Ten minutes later, Jo pulled into the parking lot of the hair-cutting place. She was out running errands, and she couldn't wait until I got home to see how my experiment turned out.
___I walked over to the car, and she rolled down the window and uttered words I'll never forget: "I'm not so sure I like it." You're 10 minutes late, Hon.
___But back home, the reception was more hospitable. Molly said I look "cool." Lindsay said I look "OK," which means: "What difference does it make how you look? You're just my dad."
___This whole deal has reminded me-- thankfully--that God looks at us from the inside out. And although God has counted the hairs of our heads (which, in my case isn't so hard), that only reflects God's intimate love and care for us, as we are.
___What a relief. I'm also relieved Jo says she likes my fuzzy head.
___I'll get a new picture if she lets me keep the new 'do.
__
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