Back in the late Sixties, a teenage farm boy in West Kentucky wanted to grow his hair long. Now, he wasn't a hippie or a druggie or anything like that. He didn't go around slashing people's tires, setting their garages on fire, or throwing eggs at their house. Heck, he didn't even TP anyone's yard!
He didn't smoke—factory or hand-rolled (wink, wink)—he didn't drink, he didn't cuss. Well, actually, he did cuss a little bit, but mostly only when he was milking cows or cleaning up after them in the milk shed.
He went to church every Sunday morning and Sunday night, never missed Wednesday Bible study unless his school basketball team was playing in a tournament. That only happened once while he was in high school. He helped out his elderly neighbors and the younger ones, too. Worked hard and was extremely reliable as a farm hand.
He wasn't out to change the world or run off with a rock-n-roll band. He just wanted his hair to cover his ears and his shirt collar. But that was not at all acceptable to his father. He very much preferred crew cuts and flat tops for his sons. A moustache, or at least a facsimile of one, was tolerable. But the hair… no, sir! Couldn't cover the top of the ear or touch the collar.
So, one day when the dad noticed that this young man's hair did touch the top of his ear and had begun to linger near his shirt collar, he issued an ultimatum. "You get a hair cut or I'm going to pull your driver's license!"
Losing your driver's license as a sixteen-year-old farm kid in the late Sixties would be something akin to being kicked out on the street, poked blind in one eye, and being surgically neutered. So, still having two good eyes and at least half a brain, and all the other original factory equipment, the lad hied himself to a barber, post haste.
The barber seated the young man, wrapped a big nylon cloth in place, revved up his trimmers, adjusted his glasses, and squinted down at the boy, "What'll it be today, son?"
The boy stared straight ahead into the mirror and didn't miss a beat. "I want a haircut. But when you're finished, I don't want anyone but you and me to be able to tell that I've been here." He paused, possibly for dramatic effect, then added, "And I want us to wonder about it."
Being as how the price was the same and he had no other skin in the game, the barber obliged. As you might imagine, it was only a day or two before the boy came back for a real haircut. For some dads, complying with the letter of the law and not the spirit is insufficient.
I'm afraid that far too many times, that's the sort of "conversion experience" that some folks seem to want. "Lord, I don't want anybody but us to know I've been here..."
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