Unforgettable Hairdresser Greg

My tribute to the student hairdresser named Greg whom I’ll never forget.

*

I was fifteen years old. It was 1972. Mom had two coupons for free hair stylings at a local beauty college. She let me make use of both coupons. I don't recall much about the first styling.

I will never forget the second.

The student hairdresser who would perform that styling introduced himself to me as Greg.

It occurred to me that we were both unusual in that beauty college setting. Greg was a man in a sea of women and I was a teenager in a sea of gray and white elderly heads.

Greg was a handsome young man. He had an attractive face with bright eyes and a ready smile. He was blonde and I've always had a special liking for yellow hair. His hair was shoulder length and styled so that it fell in waves.

I was immediately and strongly attracted to Greg -- and just as immediately embarrassed by that feeling.

After he received the coupon, he asked, "Is there any special way you'd like me to style your hair?"

"No," I said, smiling back and shrugging my shoulders.

"Just anything I want to do?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I thank you," he said, taking a little bow at what he seemed to take as my implicit compliment to his good judgment or perhaps the privilege of being the decision maker on what he would do with my hair.

I was charmed by the gesture of that bow. I was really getting a strong crush on Greg and feared it must show.

We went to the place where hair was washed. Greg shampooed my hair. Then we returned to the station where he began working on my cleansed and wet hair and putting it in curlers. "Do you know any good jokes?" he asked.

Tongue-tied, I didn't dare start telling the vulgar jokes I heard -- and told -- to my high school acquaintances. "No," I said.

As Greg worked on my hair, I noticed his arms. The muscles in Greg's arms were not especially bulky but they were wonderfully well-defined and I enjoyed watching the way the bicep and muscles in the forearms naturally tensed and relaxed under his skin as he moved within that unbuttoned white coat that was the beauty school uniform. As he worked, I sometimes giggled from sheer adolescent self-consciousness at the feelings this man aroused and Greg would look into my eyes and smile as if to ask, "What is so funny?" I was reminded of the irony of my negative answer when asked if I knew any good jokes. It seemed we were both having a lot of fun despite the relative absence of conversation.

At one point a drop of water touched the top of my ear, sending a delightful tingle through me.

After Greg had put my hair in curlers, he escorted me to one of the rows of hair dryers. Before I went under the dryer, Greg asked, "Would you like a soft drink?"

"Would I have to pay for it?" I asked.

Greg chuckled. "I could buy it for you," he generously offered.

"No, thank you," I replied.

After my time under the dryer, I was back at Greg's station. He took my hair out of the curlers, brushed and combed it. He appeared to be very interested in the hair and what he was doing with it. I remember being impressed by how much he seemed to enjoy his work. Of course, he was only a student hairdresser so he had not been doing it long enough to tire of it but I thought he was a lucky person to be doing something he liked.

When he had my hair fixed to his satisfaction, Greg waved a brush at one of the teachers and said, "Comb out check, please."

At my previous beauty college hairstyling, the woman who performed it had not asked for a comb-out check so I knew it was not always done. I felt flattered that Greg asked for the check of my hair -- perhaps unreasonably flattered as what he was asking her to look over was HIS work. Still that work was on my hair so I thought I must look very nice in the hairdo he had created.

The teacher was a woman with carrot-orange hair that she wore piled up on her head. The pair of them examined my hair and fussed over it, both seeming quite pleased with the job Greg had done. I gazed into the mirror, also liking what I saw.

"She has tough hair," the woman said.

"Tough hair," Greg seconded.

I wondered if they meant that my hair was somehow harder or more substantial than most hair or if "tough" was used in the slang sense of "good" but I didn't ask.

I never saw Greg after that one styling but I thought about him often. I still think about him on occasion.

Greg's image regularly popped into my mind in two very different contexts. One was during sexual fantasies. The other was when I heard someone complain about a job he or she disliked and I would think about how nice it would be if we could all be as enthusiastic about our work as Greg seemed to be when he fixed my hair.

Some readers may point out what they see as an irony in my having a crush on Greg since he was training to enter an occupation long known to be gay-friendly. It just so happens that I have been well acquainted with several male hairdressers -- most of them straight. I have no idea whether Greg was gay, straight, bi, or asexual. I do know that he was heterosexual -- and heterosexually hungry -- in my frequent and fevered teenaged fantasies featuring him.

I have no way of knowing whether or not Greg is still alive. If he is, I'm aware that it is quite possible that in the decades since my memorable free hair styling, the waves of blonde hair I so admired on him may well have fallen off his head, leaving a bald dome or motivating the wearing of a toupee. I would prefer to imagine that Greg has aged into a gray-haired "silver fox." I hope -- and believe that I am not being unrealistic in hoping -- that Greg is now an elderly man with nice, cleanly defined muscles, a twinkle in his eyes, a ready smile, and a charming manner.

I have no idea as to how long he worked in hairdressing or if he eventually went into other occupations. I'm aware that, if still alive, Greg is probably now retired. I wish that he could know what a powerful and lasting impression he made on a shy fifteen-year-old; I know that he cannot.

I'll never forget the handsome young man who seemed so very happy in his work.

I hope that he was always as happy at whatever he chose to do as he was on the long-ago day that he fixed my hair. I hope that he is still happy at whatever he might be doing today.

Here's to you, Greg!