Real men entrust their hair to a kid

By ANDREW MCGINN

a.mcginn@beeherald.com

I’ll admit, the first thing that entered my mind when I saw the recent photos of armed patriots across the country protesting stay-at-home orders was something along the lines of, “Wow, those dudes look legit!”

I mean, like, SEAL Team Six legit, and like if the Navy no longer quibbled about stupid little stuff like body fat percentages.

Those guys were lit — AR-15s suspended from slings, web gear, extra magazines, tactical gloves. And did I see elbow pads? I really wanted to see elbow pads.

At any rate, they all looked like they were ready to storm an al-Qaida safe house — but if I understand this correctly, they only want Supercuts to reopen. 

Apparently by force if necessary.

Believe me. I get it. Once again, a Great Clips coupon in my possession will expire before use.

You’ve undoubtedly seen some of the protest signs in recent days. I’m still admittedly unsure whether the protestors are trying to channel the Founding Fathers or else those guys who soon will again spend the better part of a Saturday on a busy corner in West Des Moines holding up giant signs announcing that Pier 1 Imports is going out of business.

I saw a photo of one cheeky protestor whose sign was a sort of combination of the two: “If it pleases the Crown,” it read, “this old man would like to get a haircut!”

I’m probably what they would label a “sheep” because I continue to be cautious about going out in public amid a pandemic that has yet to peak. For what it’s worth, Greene County earlier this week recorded its second confirmed case of COVID-19.

I’m probably also a lamb, for that matter, because I have no interest in running around with an assault rifle strapped to my chest.

But I am, ultimately, more of a man: After all, I’m not afraid to let my 11-year-old kid cut my hair.

“I need a haircut,” I was beginning to think as March evaporated into April.

Coincidentally, as I was thinking that, someone else was actually getting out a Sharpie to write “I Need a Haircut” on a protest sign.

I decided instead to pull myself up by those proverbial bootstraps this past Friday, arriving at a solution that didn’t require government intervention: I got out the clippers and entrusted them to a kid who has never so much as even mowed a lawn.

As a result, it took my son a little longer to shear my head than was probably necessary. He simply had no method, preferring instead to place the clippers at random places on my head.

Given that they’re cordless clippers, I silently hoped the battery would hold out until I least had some semblance of symmetry.

Naturally, our son had been quite up to the challenge when I initially broached the subject of him giving me a haircut. What fifth-grader doesn’t want to be turned loose on someone else’s head with electric clippers?

Funny enough, though, this haircut began just like my haircuts at professional salons — with me unable to remember which guard setting they usually use.

“Just grab that one,” I said, sizing up the clipper guards for the one that would do the least damage yet satisfy my urge for a trim.

We stepped out into the yard — the backyard, my wife ordered — and Edward Scissorhands promptly went to work on the shrub seated before him.

“Oh God,” he blurted, half-laughing and half-terrified, as the first chunk of hair fell onto the grass.

There was no turning back.

When it was all over, we left what looked like a family of flattened dead squirrels on the lawn — and we created a memory that will survive for far longer than this current public health crisis.

As the days tick by, I find myself both jolted and revolted to think that a virus that has the potential to infect Democrats with the same intensity as Republicans has somehow only managed to deepen our nation’s divide.

Bickering on Facebook — which may, in fact, be our mutual undoing — turned particularly hostile this past weekend after what we’ll call Lysolgate.

Personal opinions about whether the country should be “reopened” are now largely molded by political ideology, not medical advice. What a politician of either party knows about infectious diseases is beyond me.

On Monday, the office of Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a press release containing her latest proclamation loosening social distancing measures in 77 of Iowa’s 99 counties effective May 1. But within 20 minutes, I received a second press release from her office: “Additional COVID-19 cases in Iowa,” it read, “additional deaths confirmed.”

Uh.

I know the odds of being struck by lightning are slim, but it’s fair to guess that most of us seek shelter in a lightning storm.

And regarding the threat of “tyranny” posed by social distancing orders — please. We’re only being asked to temporarily limit nonessential trips from home in order to protect the most vulnerable among us — a population which now includes the last remnants of a great fighting force that, 75 years ago this month, liberated Buchenwald, Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps from the death-grip of actual tyranny.

If anyone has a right to claim that their civil liberties are being trampled upon, it may be those in jail too poor to post bail whose trials have now been postponed until at least summer.

But, hey, haircuts are important, too.

I realize I write this from a position of privilege at a time like this. That is, I still have a job.

If you’re reading this, however, you still have your life at a point in time when life has never seemed more fragile.

Frankly, I like who I’ve become during the Great Lockdown.

Because our office is closed to foot traffic, I’ve been able to get my work done and leave early some days. That, in turn, has enabled me to go on walks and bike rides with my son. And last Friday’s haircut will be something he remembers all his life.

My wife, a local elementary teacher, has been tapped to star in our son’s no-budget home movies (shot and edited with his iPad) when she’s not creating at-home learning activities for her students. Her screams in Henry McGinn’s directorial debut, “Raid of the 50-Foot Octopus,” rival Janet Leigh’s in “Psycho.” (Henry, our son, cast himself as two different cops who get eaten AND an Army general).

The point is, our children are hanging on our every word during this crisis. Like the children who endured the Great Depression, the Great Lockdown is going to leave an indelible mark on each and every one of them. Our son is now all but destined to become the grandfather who rations toilet paper, because he already keeps a running daily count of our stock.

It’s up to us, now, how they’ll look back on this. Will they remember this as a time of anger or of time well spent with family?

I’m choosing the latter.

Try it — hair grows back.