The Tale of the Receding Hairline

Now first of all, there are some stipulations to reading this entry today. You have to sign your life away on the dotted line in the comments section that you won't EVER tell Ole that I have written this. Because if you do, the consequences would most certainly be divorce - mine - not yours - and I don't think you'd want that on your conscience for eternity, would you?

When I met Ole back in my senior year of high school he was one handsome dude. Actually, he's still pretty handsome in a mature way, right K-Lo? But back in high school he had dark, thick, curly hair combed into a pompadour and a ducktail (the fashion of that time) all the way down to his bedroom brown eyes. The bedroom brown eyes are his mother's description. I'm not going there, okay? He was kinda like John Travolta in Grease. He had a reputation of being a "hood" which meant a tough guy back then. Being tough back then meant you smoked and probably drank beer on Friday nights. Drugs hadn't entered our school system at that point.

He drove a 1949 Ford with straight pipes on it and would drive around the block during lunch hour and gun the engine so his pipes would rap. One day the principal had enough of that junk, stopped him and pleasantly asked him not to come back to school. He was suspended for a period of time for that. He also was suspended once when he was seen smoking by a teacher at a fast food restaurant over the lunch hour. Where would that get you in today's society?

Here's what Ole looked like when I met him. Note the hairline.


We were married two years after we graduated from high school and a year after we were married he joined the Navy. One year later he was shipped to a NATO base in Keflavik, Iceland where I joined him. Of course when he joined the Navy he had to wear a white hat, and that's when the hairline started to recede. Here's a picture taken about a year after we moved to Iceland. He really was a handsome sailor in his bell bottom pants and that slight swagger that he had. But note the hairline is turning into a widow's peak.

After a two year stint in Iceland he was sent to an aircraft carrier to prove that he had sea legs. They had to keep their hair a bit on the shorter side then, although they could have long sideburns and their hair could be long enough to touch their shirt collars. That's when his moustache turned into a Snidley Whiplash moustache. Note the hair is combed forward now covering up the thinning widow's peak.

Here's a picture of Ole about the time he got out of the Navy. The hair is getting thinner, but it's longer once again.

The picture below was taken about 4 years after he got out of the Navy. The hair is even thinner so he's back to combing it forward again. Here's where the moustache really turned into Snidley Whiplash. It would take him longer in the morning to apply the moustache wax than to do anything else to get ready for work. If I remember correctly, at this point in time the moustache was long enough to reach his ears if he stretched it out. But that was the style of the day.

It was about this time that Ole went to work for Large International Corporation where he wore a 3-piece suit, white shirt and a tie for 30 years. Can you imagine that? Going from a tough guy to a productive member of society? Strange things do happen, you know.

BTW, that is not Lovely Daughter in the picture. It's the daughter of friends that were stationed in Iceland with us.

Anyway, one of the technicians that worked for him at that time became a good friend (and still is). After many years of watching Ole wear a combover that got worse as the years went by, he came into Ole's office and said, "Come with me, we're going on a little ride." Ole, of course, thought he was too busy to go for a ride in the middle of the day, but Don wouldn't hear of it and grabbed him by the arm and out of the office they went. Unknown to Ole, Don had made arrangements with a hair stylist friend of his to "fix" Ole's hair. They walked into the shop and Don told the hair stylist, "He's bald, make him look like it." Ole came out with a very nice haircut that didn't have one side 9 inches long that was combed over the top of his head to "hide" the baldness. You know that never works anyway, it just looks silly.

Here's a picture of Ole and Lovely Daughter taken when she was just out of college and just a couple of years before he retired. By this time he had grown a goatee to go along with the moustache, and had gotten rid of the Snidley Whiplash look. Thank heavens - because that thing would always go up my nose when he kissed me.

Ole always said that before he retired he was going to shave his head and get an earring - shades of his rebellious high school days I think. So about six months before he retired he got his ear pierced and I had an earring made for him with one of the diamonds from his first wedding band. I also had one made up for Lovely Daughter, so she's got the other diamond from his first wedding band. (He wore it out - we've been married THAT long.) Wearing an earring was strictly against company policy - but like I said, shades of rebellion. About two months before he retired he started shaving his head, although by that time there wasn't much left to shave (tee hee). When I asked him about company disapproval his response was, "What are they going to do, fire me?"

So here's what Ole looks like now. A few pounds heavier, shaved head and facial hair. He always says he's mean, evil, bad, nasty and rotten and besides that he's not nice guy. Liar.