Throwback Thursday: God Damn, That Hair!

Over the years, I've shared some embarrassing photos of the hair styles of my youth, but none have been more embarrassing than when I was in my early 20s, in the late 1980s.

(Well, there was that Year of the 'Fro, but let's not speak of that.)

A couple of days ago, as I was searching through old photo albums (remember when we used to print photographs and place them in binders?), looking for images of DW and me, in our early years of dating and travelling, I came across some photos that stood out. Not because they were well-composed, properly focused, or of any real interest, but because of what stood out, more than anything else, in the pictures.

My hair.

They were snapshots taken of me. Portraits, of a kind. Shot from the waist up, with me standing on a slight angle, in half-profile but head mostly facing the lens.

The first shot stood out, to a lesser degree, because I was wearing a respirator and face shield. I immediately remembered the day. A datestamp, faded, in the upper-right corner (though, not visible in the scanned and digitally touched-up copy), showed that the photo was captured on my birthday, in 1987.

It was a quiet day in the camera store, in the Merivale Mall, and a couple of things were going on. First, I was helping the photo-lab technicians change the chemicals in our then state-of-the-art printer (which accounted for the protective gear—I would have also worn a lab coat to protect my clothes).

Second, my colleagues and I were playing with one of the pocket cameras, which captured the date on the image. I know that this wasn't shot with any of my cameras because, at the time, I owned no 35mm camera that would imprint numbers on the film.

Third, because we also offered a passport-photo service, I posed for the photo in front of our white backdrop.

These three factors brought back the memory of the day. It was quiet in the store, so my colleagues and I did what we usually did when there was little left in the store to do—when there were no customers, no shelves to stock, no display cases to clean. We played with the cameras to better familiarize ourselves with the products we offered to customers.

My colleague was going to capture an image of me, but before she did, our lab technician asked if I could help carry a large plastic container filled with developing liquid. I suited up and gave my assistance.

Once finished, I removed the lab coat, but my sales colleague said, "That mask is fetching, Ross. You should keep it on."

Thus, the photo.

The flash cast a shadow on the passport backdrop, but there was no mistaking the mass of long, wavy hair in the back. That infamous hockey hair.

Looking at it, the other day, in the photo album, I shook my head. To think that I thought that this hair style suited me.

Flipping the pages, I jumped ahead to June 3, 1989. It was the wedding day of an elementary schoolhood friend (schoolhood? is that a word?), and I was one of his groomsmen. The black tuxedos with the bright-red cummerbund, matching kerchief and bow tie marked the end of the 80s. But I still had that damned hair.

I remember that day. I would have actually gone to my hairdresser earlier that day and said, "Clean me up, I have a wedding to attend. But keep the hair long in the back."

These days, when I get my hair cut, I tell my stylist to keep it short. No waves, no curls. When I wash my hair, I want to spend no more than a few seconds brushing it and then getting on with my life.

May hockey hair be gone forever.