I know it’s going to seem somewhat shocking that as much time as I’ve spent behind the camera lens through the years, I have rarely had any desire to be in front of one.
In fact, were it not for the trove of pictures and slides I unearthed from my father’s garage, there really wouldn’t be all that many pictures of me in my younger days compared to how many I’ve taken of the kids over the years.
And if I had my druthers, the mirror in the morning and evening are reminders enough that I’m pretty sure this face would have a great career on *RADIO* where the presenter can’t be seen by the audience.
And I’m genuinely OK with that as I’m about to prove conclusively with some of the rarest pictures you’ll ever find on this site.
Actual selfies! 🙂
But first, give me a moment to explain why this is happening and why (in the light of hindsight) I should probably put a trigger warning on this post when I publish it.
With the madness of the past few months, I’ve not had a chance to actually do something about the unruly mess that my hair has become over that time.
It was already quite a step a couple of years ago to change from the usual “short but not too short, parted down the middle” that served so well when I had a lot more hair at my disposal than entropy has seen fit to allow these past few years.
Ah, that standard set of instructions to the barber once I’d made it out of the evil clutches of the AAFES barbers on various military bases who have a brutally efficient method of pushing as many customers (victims) through the barber’s chairs as they possibly can. For 35 years, I was in heaven knowing that the dreaded “Army cut” that Dad preferred was but a memory.
Then something curious happened…as I was getting older, the fact that I had baldies for all four grandfathers was Gregor Mendel’s revenge upon me coming home to roost. Yes, entropy was having it’s way and those follicles have been on the death march to the back of my head ever since.
But there is that rebellious streak that takes a page from Dylan Thomas’ famous poem and tries to hold on to those brief shining moments where there’s hair aplenty on top of the dome so it is often months between shearing sessions at the barber shoppe.
To everything there is a season and I’ve got a fool-proof method of knowing when it’s time to bow to the inevitable and the unruly hair that looks an awful lot like James May of “Top Gear” / “Grand Tour” fame has to give way to the more sensible and efficient close cropped cut like the ones I remembered not so fondly during Dad’s time in the Army.
In fact, Garibaldi’s picture is the one I use now when the barber asks how I’d like what passes for and remains of my hair to be…styled.
Half a hour later with every single implement in the barber’s arsenal having been used…I leave it to you to judge how successful Chief Garibaldi’s picture was in helping me transform from a much more panoramic James May wannabee to a much more panoramic Michael Garibaldi wannabee. 🙂
