The rest of the story

Starting about eighth grade, our older son started wearing his hair short. With clippers we were able to keep it trim and avoid the time and expense of hair cuts. I was pleased when our younger son started doing the same this school year. In November we replaced the old, now rusty clippers with powerful new ones.

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving Wiley sat on the back porch as I started his haircut. High school soccer tryouts were the next day and he wanted to make a good impression. I took the first big swipe through his thick hair. "Oh no, oh no, oh Wiley, I'm so sorry." I had forgotten to put the Number 2 guard on the clippers so he basically had no hair instead of hair about a quarter inch long.

There was no recovery. The first stripe was so long and wide I had to finish the hair cut to match. So in the middle of winter he ended up basically bald. He didn't take it badly. I don't know if that made me feel better or worse.

I picked him up at the junior high that Monday afternoon to take him over to the high school for tryouts. Oh, my!

Classmates had written on his head during the day. One of his teachers called him "Bathroom Wall" in honor of the grafitti. I couldn't believe he had let boys mark on his head the day of tryouts. He shrugged it off.

Well, he definitely stood out on the field. At the end of tryouts, the coach talked to him for a few minutes alone. Wiley was invited back to the second day of tryouts, but was warned never to look like that again.

After a second day of wet, freezing tryouts, Wiley made the team, the only freshman from his school to do so.

A couple of weeks later, at the initial parent meeting, the coach was joking with us about that day. It seems during the private conversation with the coach, Wiley confessed. He wasn't trying to be disruptive, he had fallen asleep in class, and so his friends marked up his head.

I don't know if he has fallen asleep in class since then. I do know he triple checks the clippers now before we start a haircut.