Friday Letter 9/7/07

There's a man here in Greeley who hasn't paid for a haircut since sometime in 1967.

He claims it was all because of the John Birch Society. "I went for a haircut every month. Finally, my barber wore me out with his constant babble about how the Communists were going to overthrow the government.

"One day, he said Dwight David Eisenhower was a 'Communist Pawn.' That was the last straw. I just quit barbers altogether. No more John Birch Society crap for me.''

O.K., but what about shaving?

"I quit shaving about that time too. I had watched the agony my dad went through. He had such a thick healthy beard that he had to shave twice a day.

"Doing something as mundane as shaving isn't beneath my dignity. If I had to inject myself with insulin every day, I could certainly face it. But when I began to think about it, shaving every day -- every day -- it was just overwhelming."

Our Greeley man says, "Do the numbers. If I got a haircut every month between 1967 and today, I would have sat in that chair wearing that bib around my neck, amid talcum powder dust and Four Roses hair tonic, four-hundred and eighty (480) times.

"If I had shaved five times a week since 1967, that would be ten-thousand four-hundred shaves. Ouch. Imagine doing something extraneous like playing with a yo-yo 10,400 times. Besides, the instant you shave or get a haircut, it just starts growing right back. It's a futile exercise in diminishing returns.

"The numbers themselves are mind boggling. But consider the cash out of pocket. In 1967, haircuts cost $1.25 each. Today it's probably $10 or $12. If an average of $5 each is reasonable, that would be $2,400.00 for 480 hair-shortening sessions. Twenty-four-hundred smackers spent on something I don't need?''

The man recalled being accosted at the municipal recreation center. "An old Goldwing rider was in the locker room. He looks up at me and he says, 'Don't you know what a razor is for?'

"I answered, I think it's for women to shave under their arms.

"Shaving is time consuming," our Greeley man says. "Looking in a mirror for that long every day is pure unadulterated vanity. And it does say in the Bible that 'all is vanity.' ''

But, we asked our Greeley man, isn't it vanity for someone to braid his hair, comb and shape his beard, and (gulp) even bleach that hair and beard?

"Well yes," our man said. "All is vanity."

Sort of dovetailed into that is the made-up word of the week: Egovanity. You like?

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Here's a true story for you. An acquaintance of ours was to check in to Northern Colorado Medical Center for minor surgery.

Right in front of the main doors, she slipped and fell. Her kneecap was broken. Health care professionals were immediately in abundance.

You're thinking, they went and got a gurney and wheeled her to emergency, right?

Wrong. They said they were required by regulations to call an ambulance. The trip from the front door of NCMC to the back door of NCMC, in an ambulance, cost $800.

"I guess everybody has to get his share," our friend says.

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Word of the week: Catacomb. From Latin, catacumba, sepulchral vault. Any of a series of vaults or galleries in an underground burial place. The Catacombs are the underground cemeteries in or around Rome, some of which were used as a refuge by the early Christians.

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The word catacombs came to mind when I was thinking about State Hospital South in Blackfoot, Idaho.

As a punk newspaper reporter, I sniffed around SHS a lot. I found the catacombs. Access is gained underground, from one building to another.

The halls are lined with ceramic tile. There are dim sconce lights every few yards, but no escape hatches that I could find.

I never wrote a story about the catacombs. It didn't seem like news to me -- I thought everyone would have already known.

Does it sound spooky to you? It does to me. What function do the catacombs have, or even, are they still in existence? Anybody know?

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Next week's word: accident.