THe Ink Zone

August 2000                                                                                                                                Number 95
Where do cowlicks go?

The local barber shop, one of several fancy fronted stores in a Scottsdale strip mall, is home to a talented team of Italian barbers catering to the needs of four generations. Imagine, if you will, the typical row of classic designed barber chairs, no hair washing sinks, just chairs with a mirror behind the counter and a collection of clippers, razors, combs, towels, swabs, and tonics that came, at least from my memories, from 30 years ago. The waiting chairs have yesterday's newspaper, and last years magazines that must have come from the local dentists office where they begin their cycle of after current news life. Nothing for sale, but the radio blaring the business clairvoyance from Sayers willing to help others spend there money.

After school, always a poor time to walk into a barber shop, moms with hordes of boys (I think that last one on the chair is a boy, not from his hair, but from the baseball glove he clutches)? One young lad strides up to the chair wanting a cut with the top longer and the sides clipped close. Until I watched this process, I was convinced that it took two barbers, one to do the top and the other for the sides. The next lad, climbs up on the old fashioned booster chair, a full mop of healthy blonde hair, and mom gives instructions for the cut she wants. Chip, snap, chip, and Walla, it is done complete with a cowlick.

Now interested, I look around and none of us older guys have cowlicks (OK being bald might be one of the reasons). Golly I do love a good research topic. I now watch in detail. Kids in, cowlicks out. Now I am walking the malls, airports, and baseball stadiums in search of a male over the age of 12 with a cowlick. If they have em, they sure hide em.

Back at Roma Barbershop, I watch at a different time of day, morning. Folks in folks out-not a cowlick in the process. As I expand my research to family and friends, a theory begins to take form, a unifying concept sure to explain my observations. The dream of any scientist is universal truth and I felt close.

One friend reminded me that a cowlick is a block of some salty stuff hanging out in the field with slurped divots taken out transforming the cube into free form art. Is this the answer, some invisible cow stands behind the barber and licks the back of young kids heads in search of salt? This strip mall was once a pasture. Could be, but that does help explain what I saw in the Miami airport barber shop = kids in, cowlicks out.

Boy am I confused.

Finally I get enough nerve to ask the barber his self. Tony says, “ well it is simple, cowlicks live under the booster chair”. Wow what a solution. No one without a booster chair gets the cowlicks, just the little tykes. Now it might be true that Mom has some ideas of what a 'nice' haircut looks like that might well accentuate a cowlick on a young lad, however if these phenomenon live under the booster chair, what a safe place to stay and not be disturbed or discovered until an unsuspecting lad arrives. When these guys reach 12, the cowlicks return to hiding to adopt a new head. Explains it all, right?

A friend, now in his 40's, says he has a cowlick, but you would be hard pressed to see it. I suspect this is just a young streak in him that pops up when he is being a little devilish or temporarily leaves mature space to have a little not so adult fun. I hope we all have that sort of cowlick.

G.E. McKelvey
GEM Press
9485 E. Conquistadores Dr.
Scottsdale, Arizona
85255-4345
gempress@qWEST.net
480 473-9320
Fax 480 473-8599