A Dusty cut for me!

It is the Saturday morning after our historic win. Waking up I am still partially euphoric and feel like I have caught the biggest wave, on the biggest board, with the biggest swell possible, with my hair dancing in the wind. I realized I have woken up with my cap still on. I have needed a haircut for a while and the missus says I look like Professor Julius Sumner Miller. So I head north to the tattooed barber to ponder.

 

A couple of Tiger families are there. Young cubs, getting a trim. Two of them want “Dusty” cuts. Their trusty barber proceeds to cut, snip and style a Martin mullet carefully into place. It does not take long, the boys grin as they are shown their mohawks and back goes on their respective caps. I feel warm inside as I watch this process and become very reflective.

 

I remember our haircuts as kids. Dad would line us up, one by one, the four boys would proceed to the ritual of the Halabi Haircut. It was a fearsome process, waiting, sitting and clipping. One at a time we would get the short back and sides, and his clippers would hum menacingly in our ears like drones in the distance. One false move and we would get a nick and sometimes to boot, a clip under the ear. At the time dad was smoking and he would have his Rolly in mouth, as the scissors sung, snapped and swirled around our ears. We clenched our teeth and withstood it. I am sure it was character forming. Dad’s father was a barber in Lebanon in his day and he loved cutting the hair of the Aussie and British troops at the time. Legend has it that this was one of the mains reasons our own dad decided to migrate to Australia, he loved the Aussie personality. Back to the haircuts, maybe our dad sniping at us with his scissors was living out his dream. All I knew was that when it was all over I was relieved.

 

Retrospectively, watching the young tiger boy’s hair fall to the floor I thought how easy the kids of today have it. They can get what they want regarding haircuts and they can channel their hair loved heroes accordingly. Geez, I would have loved a Robbie McGee Mane, or a Geoff Raines twirl, even better, a Royce Hart Bob. I would dream of long bouncing hair then and a Jim Jess headband to tie it all back.

 

Back to the castle, over breakfast, I get reports from the family. “Nice,” said Jack, which is a lot from him on a Saturday morning. Sasha, commented that it was “cool.” He seemed traumatized himself during the week because Sinead, his stylist, “took too much of my hair,” (despite the fact I was going to ring the saloon and ask for a refund as I could not see what actually constituted a haircut). This next weekend for him is all about the Deb ball. You must understand for boys, yes boys, it is all about their hair, the mirror and the gel. Lynda of course loved the haircut (thanks darls). Over coffee I ponder… long may we let our young men select their own haircuts!

 

To read more about Dusty Martin, check out Joe De Petro’s piece here.