Steve
WILLEY
Mom alwcys had a way with hedge trimmers
Since the day my then-blond hair
fell below my eyes till the day I
became a young man, I have been
subjected to what
I affectionately
refer to as
“mommy cuts.”
By that I mean
my momma, a
woman with no
salon training and
horrendous
eyesight, cut my
hair.
Growing up in rural Mississippi, a
person didn't have a lot of choices.
Mom was about the only person a
boy could trust with his hair—
especially since the town barber was
also the local drunk.
I was lucky in that I was the
youngest of three sons and my mom
got some valuable practice time in
with my siblings. In the eight years
before my birth, my mother went
from giving haircuts that were
sueable to those that merely made
people join a convent.
She was never particularly good at
it, and the only advantage to mommy
cuts was that my family saved a
fortune when Halloween rolled
around.
A simple mommy cut was enough
to petrify the neighbors into giving
the Willey kids candy, money, and on
three occasions, the deeds to their
homes.
On haircut days, (usually after
“Captain Kangaroo” episodes aired
and my father was so liquored up he
happily consented) my mom would
make die family draw straws and the
loser was forcibly held in a frail,
metal dining room chair.
When momma was in a hurry,
she’d use the “bowl technique” in
which a glass mixing bowl the size of
Montana was used to beat the loser
into submission, at which point she
would begin cutting.
My family never had a lot of
money when I was growing up, and
we couldn’t afford the delicate sheers
used tty most barbers. We had to
make do with everyday household
instruments, and while I found the
nail-clippers a bit time-consuming,
they proved to be far more gentle
than my dad’s hedge trimmers.
But at the time, it really didn’t
bother me. Like most young boys at
that stage in life, I was more con
cerned with catching snakes and
learning to burp the entire Gettysburg
Address than I was with my appear
ance. Mommy cuts were just a part of
life I had to endure.
It wasn’t until I began junior high
that I was teased severely because of
my obvious mommy cuts. I knew that
something had to change.
I labored long hours grinding ice
for a neighbor who owned a snow
cone truck, saving every penny in the
hopes that I could one day abolish
mommy cuts forever.
Then in the mid-1980s, I had
saved enough money to get a real
haircut, and I would have been
damned if it wasn’t going to be a
knock-out. Oklahoma University
football player Brian Bosworth had
created a style that was the envy of
young people across the nation: “The
Boz.”
I begged my momma to let me
have a real barber give the cut, but
she assured me she was familiar with
the “Booze” and would have no
problem cutting it herself. She even
promised to get clippers! I had never
been cut with clippers before, so, on
her written word that she would use
clippers and clippers only, I con
sented.
I cried the night before, thousands
of questions racing through my head:
Would my friends approve? Would
my blood clot as fast with clipper
wounds as they did with hedge
trimmer ones? And what the hell is a
‘BOOZE?’
When mommy-cut day arrived,
the house was awakened by the dull
whirl of an electric razor and the
muffled whimper of our family dog,
Skippy. Mom, to this day, claims that
electric clippers “must be broken in”
and it was for that reason and not
some evil satisfaction that my
momma made Skippy the laughing
stock of the dog community.
There was no need to draw straws
this day, The “Booze” was going
first. The second the clippers cut on,
my mom’s hands raced feverishly
over my head as I gazed at the open
jaws of my brothers, and the all-too
common winces from my father.
Large clumps of blond hair leapt
from my scalp as if they were
escaping a flaming building.
Suddenly, as quickly as it began, it
stopped. (It also helped that my
father eventually slurred out the
phrase, “Dammit Susan, att’s
ENUFF!”) I won’t get into the
specifics of how I looked other than
to mention that I looked remarkably
similar to Don Rickies’ butt.
For months I was told I looked
like a diseased squirrel, and my only
refuge was playingjunior high
football where I could wear a helmet
without getting strange looks from
teachers, priests and funeral home
directors.
It would be the last mommy cut I
would ever receive.
But despite the pain, both physical
and emotional, that mommy cuts
inherently induced, there was
something blessed about those days.
Life was so unhectic and comfort
able.
Now with college worries, rent
and bills piling up, and seven-year
bonds at an all time low, I sort of
long for those days again. Days
when, as a sandy-haired river boy,
mommy-cuts were the only worries I
knew.
Willey is a senior news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist.
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