Year Of The Afros ~ 1971 (and we all got along)

Black Power! Black Pride! Stop trying to look like white folks! Show off that kinky hair instead of "getting a relaxer" and straightening your hair with grease and hot combs. The new styles were mostly embraced by the younger set. After all, it probably took longer to tease out that 'fro every morning than to put your hair in rollers every night.The hairdressers hated Afros! There's more money to be made in perms and relaxers.

I think I shot these pix for an acting composite. She had the biggest Afro I ever saw. No doubt about that!

But what goes around comes around. Today she'd be in her late fifties, most likely getting a monthly touch-up on her grey roots, a relaxer, and wearing her hair in a perm. Hairdressers love that!

When I Still Had Hair...

Cool looking hair! It reminds me of Jimi Hendrix's afro. I have to start ignoring Claudia's "You look like a damned street person!" as she dials Vivette's shop, then tells me to "go right over there now! She has time for you!"

I guess that's what happens, though, when a guy stays friendly with his ex-wife and his former girlfriend, the two of them are best friends with one another, and one of them owns a beauty salon.

Then for the next few days just about everybody who knows me (other than the two ex's), young and old, male and female (and the usual variations of those) pipes up with a "Why'd you cut your hair?" "It was looking so cool!" "It really suited your personality!" "I didn't recognize you!" "You oughta grow it back!" And the cycle starts all over again. I remind myself of Dawn's remark last year "If a guy has that much hair at your age he should flaunt it!"

Oh well, I was standing behind the city's portable stage as they were setting up for a concert. I was expecting that some of the musicians would be sporting a bit of hair, and they did. It brought back good memories of a lot of outdoor rock and jazz concerts over the years. On the down side, hair or no hair, I was unlikely to have any cute young chicks flirting with me, and with the Police Station only a couple hundred feet away I doubted that I'd be smelling the pungent odor of smoldering ganga. Damn!