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The Battle of the Bald

Though I am only forty-six, my hair has begun to vanish (yes, that's me to the right just ten years ago). I do not have trouble growing hair. But location is everything with hair. I am like a struggling oil company. I have great production, but poor distribution.

If you’re one of those guys who still has his original hair, go ahead and laugh. But if you’re experiencing a recession yourself, if you’ve been cluttering pillows and clogging drains, if you’ve stopped combing and started rearranging, you’ll be happy to know that there is hope. I can’t think of anything hopeful at the moment, but give me some time and I’ll think of something. While I do, let’s look at some ways in which the scientific community, working hand-in-hand with laboratory rats, has shown us just how bleak the picture really is.

1. Genes. Scientists recently announced that they have discovered the gene that causes baldness. Unfortunately, they haven’t a clue what to do with it.

2. Drugs. If you were alive during the ‘60s, you know that drugs taken in large quantities helped men forget many things, including their baldness. But this was momentary and, let’s face it, the side-effects were monstrous. Researchers now claim, however, that they have found a proven hair-growing drug. It’s called Minoxidol and it has been known to work on various objects. Fruit. Wood. Snooker balls. Unfortunately, it has been largely ineffective in men.

3. Music. After years of research and very little success, the Daiichi Pharmaceutical Company, a leading Japanese drug maker, decided to make wads and wads of money by releasing a compact disc of Mozart music. Yes, believe it or not, the CDs are now marketed exclusively through pharmacies. Daiichi Pharmaceutical claims that the music will soothe the listener, relieve stress and even reverse the balding process. I’m not sure about this, but they may be on to something here. You see, during high school I conducted similar experiments on my father in which I played loud music for him. This caused his head to appear hairier.

Practical tips to try at home:

Relocate. Yes, you may want to move to another province where no one will recognize you; where no one will know that you once had hair. Wait a minute, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is relocate your hair. Move it from an area where it thrives to The Dead Zone.

Innovate. The most popular technique is to grow your hair very long on one side and comb it carefully over the deceased area. If you have false teeth to go along with it, you can scare the living daylights out of your grandchildren during a windstorm. Or wear a hat everywhere. If this fails, grow your eyebrows to their full length and comb them back. Let me know how this goes.

If all these things should fail, perhaps you can try a concept as old as the Bible: contentment. I was standing in the parking lot the other day. My hair was blowing in the breeze, and I didn’t have the energy to chase after it. Suddenly, a comforting thought hit me: Our heads were made for more than growing hair.

When it comes right down to it, we determine very little of what goes on above the hairline. But we can do something about what goes on beneath it. Second Corinthians 4:16 says it best: “...Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

I need to be reminded of these things often. Yesterday I looked in the mirror and told my wife, “Honey, I don’t look forty-six.” She said, “No, but you used to.”