The older I get the longer a haircut takes, despite having fewer and fewer actual hairs on my head to cut. A similar principal is in effect at a grand-master chess match: fewer game-pieces on the chessboard means longer deliberations between moves.
Despite receding hair, getting a haircut now causes me no anxiety whatsoever. Ironically, I most worried about my hair when I had plenty to spare. As a small boy, I saw the world through an unruly mop, but even attempts by my mother to merely WASH my hair caused me to howl with as much tonsil-quavering gusto as being dragged to the dentist.
The drama of childhood dental appointments is easy to understand –my yowling correlated precisely with the actions of a bloke jamming a drill in the nerve-endings of my teeth– but it isn’t immediately clear why anyone grooming my hair caused such dread. Of course, in the 1970s, even grown-men loathed the barbershop but that was mere fashion. My hair-angst went much deeper than that, and was not connected to aesthetics at all. Like some tiny SAMSON, I saw grooming of my hair as an attack on my very self.
No matter how “good” the haircut, even if done professionally at the barbershop a few blocks from our house, I hated it anyway. Mum’s desire to save an inevitable public fracas, not to mention personal expense, meant that the haircuts were more likely to be done at home, by her. There were already 4 of us boys when I was 7 years old, so trimming our hair must have been an unending and utter misery for poor Mum. However, there came a savior: THE HAIR MAGICIAN.
In the 1970s, the K-TEL corporation solved the problems of common folk with little doo-hickeys, whatsits and thingamajigs. A particular point of interest was that each product had been “seen on TV” though only in the commercial that pointed out that fact. One such advertisement promised that a product called THE K-TEL HAIR MAGICIAN would deliver a haircut by merely combing your hair. Why, after a few strokes of this gadget (which looked like a long-handled comb) you’d be the very picture of style! (Such as it was in 1973). All this, without having to pay for a haircut! Mum must have thought all her prayers were answered at last.
I remember sitting out in the back yard on a kitchen chair as Mum swooped in with her newly-bought miracle gizmo. Predictably, as she combed it through my hair, I howled like a banshee, though this time with good reason; a haircut from the HAIR MAGICIAN hurt like holy hell. The K-TEL wizards had cunningly installed razor blade cartridges between the teeth of this comb to do the cutting. In theory. In reality, a few strokes from this new-fangled comb left hair entangled in the fangle, cutting capacity was lost and subsequent styling was achieved by hair being not so much cut as TUGGED out by the roots.
Sadly, a wave of the Hair Magician’s wand did NOT magically transform me into the smiling BRADY BUNCH kid of the TV commercials. Instead, I was transformed into something resembling a mangy dog who’d had chewing-gum cut from its fur with toenail-clippers. In terms of an identifiable fashion style, it could be compared to the punk look, but about 5 years too soon to be either identifiable or appreciated.
The only consolation was that it was relatively easy to blend in, even with such a hair disaster atop my head. Not just because the 1970s was the time when everyone’s hair went wild but also because mine wasn’t the only Mum to fall under the evil spell of THE HAIR MAGICIAN.
I developed asthma and skin conditions and other outward manifestations of my inner turmoil. Worst of all, I was stricken by one of the worst cases of clinical Cry-Babyism ever seen by medical professionals in the New England Tablelands region of Australia. (I believe that my case is still cited in some medical texts even today).
Even though Jock was small, he could keep up with me wherever we had to go. If I climbed over fences, he would too, or else find a way under them. Unlike many small dogs, he wasn’t afraid to jump in a swimming hole or go in the surf. He had the run of the neighbourhood and I don’t remember him ever being on a leash, he was out on his own recognizance most of the time.
When not with me, Jock ran with his own little pack of neighbourhood mutts. There were about 6 of them and they were all small to mid-sized dogs but none of them were “cute”. The overall effect that they made as they trotted about the place was that of a gang of teenage punks. There was something slightly roguish about them. They were up to no good.
On our way home from an errand to the corner shop, Jock and I encountered a big, nasty looking dog that we had never seen around the neighbourhood before. He was the kind of dog that makes you nervous from the get go, and I could tell that Jock didn’t like the cut of this bugger’s clothes any more than I did.
Where one second earlier there were two separate dogs, there was now only a writhing, biting, snarling tangle. A boiling dust cloud out from which flailed more paws, teeth and tails than seemed possible, like a fight in an animated cartoon. Except that this particular cartoon fight wasn’t making me laugh. These two dogs were really going at it, and I am sad to say that dear Jock wasn’t getting the best of the exchange of violence. He was battling every bit as fiercely as the bigger bloke, but was no match for his size.
Terrified that Jock would be killed, I was screaming and bawling and beside myself within seconds of this savagery getting under way. I dropped Mum’s shopping, picked up a stick and tried to get in there and hit the big bloke a couple of whacks, but this brawl was thrashing all over the place like a savage whirligig of fangs, fur and saliva.
That run to the corner seemed to take forever; I simply could NOT get there fast enough. I was in a panic that the big bloke with his longer legs would catch up to Jock in no time. Sure enough, the most heart-wrenching howls came from the direction I last saw them go. I had felt physically inadequate many a time before, at school sporting events, but never wished harder for the power to run faster, than on this occasion. With hot tears streaming down my face I ran toward what was now a blood-curdling noise, an absolute cacophony of canine screams, yelps and whines.
When I was almost at the intersection that I had been aiming for, the nasty big stranger came bolting around corner heading straight at me, and then right past me, howling and yowling, because hot on his heels were JOCK AND ALL HIS CREW!
Have you ever gone from feeling the absolute worst you ever felt, to the best feeling of your whole life in the space of a few seconds? From the depths of despair to absolute elation; that was the dramatic surge of joyous emotion that lifted me up and carried me along, as I saw that evil big bugger chased into the distance by a vengeful mob of little dogs, led by my mate Jock!
I went back and found Mum’s shopping that I had earlier abandoned and sat on the curb and waited for Jock to come back. I thought on what a wiley old campaigner Jock was, to have led that gullible big buffoon into the trap he had so carefully laid for him.
To my great surprise, I saw that he hadn’t been seriously wounded in the initial set-to with the bigger bloke. I considered the possibility that Jock had only been play-acting at losing the earlier brawl in order to trick that nasty bugger into running into an even worse walloping from his whole crew. Could it be? Ho, ho!
I remember very well trying to convey to the rest of the family over dinner that night, that in the time it took for Jock and me to go buy some milk and bread at the corner shop, Jock was the triumphant hero in an absolutely epic battle that ran the entire gamut of emotions, both human and canine. But even at the time, I was aware that I hadn’t done Jock’s story full justice when I told it on that particular night.
Drive-In theatres are fondly remembered for providing teenagers with both a cover story (a trip to the movies) and a relatively private place (a car) for their furtive, mutual anatomical research. But they were also frequented by families with small children. Before the ages of video and DVD, a drive-in theatre was where parents could see movies without having to feel self-conscious about their bawling kids. No need for a baby sitter for the tiny ones, just bring them along. Sealed off in your (more or less) soundproof bubble you weren’t likely to bother the other patrons, who were probably families themselves, or teenagers who had more pressing things (ie; the pressing of “things”) on their minds. But you could easily bother each other, cooped up in there during a double bill of “Blue-Beard’s Ghost” and “Herbie the Love Bug”. With all the bickering and crying and spilled drinks and whatnot there was often as much tragedy and comedy and drama in the car, as on the screen.
Like a lot of children, the death of BAMBI’s Mother affected me very deeply and I’m absolutely sure that I added my own blubbering to the general commotion within our car at that point. Parents sometimes like to shield their kids from such raw emotions, but this moment of tragedy is a big part of one of my most powerful early-childhood memories. And it wasn’t over yet, BAMBI was about to affect me in perhaps an even more powerful way; it was while at the drive-in watching “Bambi” that I realised that this film was somehow different to other movies… IT WAS DRAWINGS… Moving and talking and seeming to be alive… and then seeming to be killed… drawings making me feel both happy, and then sad. The tears of anguish were barely even dry on my face before I started to wonder how this could be so…. What kind of magic was this? I could not grasp how it was possible for these drawings to be alive. It was a singular moment; I was both pulled into and popped out of, the movie at the same time. 
Behind our car at the back of the drive-in, in the same building as the snack bar, there was a tiny window allowing patrons to peek into the projection booth. In an attempt to convey the truth of the animation process to me, my Dad lifted me up high enough that I could see in. I watched a big machine spool out a long shiny ribbon that passed through a ray of light, sending a flickering beam out through the main window and onto the huge screen, in front of which our family car was parked, under the night sky. I was told that there were thousands of hand drawn little pictures on that strip of film and through some process as yet beyond my ability to comprehend, they looked alive when put through the projector and light went through them. 
that I realised that families with less than 4 kids even existed. A feature of huge families is that the oldest child of parents who are themselves oldest children, and started their own parenting young (as was the case with both my parents) may have an Aunt or Uncle who is only a few years older. I have one of each; my Aunty Mary (only four years older than me) on my Mother’s side, and my Uncle John (five years older than me) on my Father’s side. Because of the minimal age difference between us they often felt like my older siblings more than anything else, and some of my earliest memories of playing with other kids were of playing with my Aunt and Uncle. 
One day, while playing in the front yard of our house, I hit upon the splendid notion that it would be very interesting to see how far it was possible to run with my eyes closed. This was at around the age that “running” was a new and wonderful super power that had only been recently discovered (between two and three years old, I’m thinking). I wanted to see what the new limits were, you understand. Realising immediately that our garden was not big enough to do the experiment justice, I went out the front gate and, closing my eyes, ran as fast as I could down the pavement that paralleled our street. Thankfully, rather than running out into the road and being hit by a passing car, I instead ran full tilt into a concrete telegraph pole, copping a fearsome smack to the forehead from a big rusty metal bolt that was embedded in its surface.