Bald is Beautiful

If you have actually seen me in real life, you will never mistake me for Brad Pitt. And if you have never seen me in real life, again, you will never mistake me for Brad Pitt. A bowling ball, maybe; a yard light, perhaps. But never some macho, slick, cool dude.

In case you haven't yet connected the dots, one of the few claims to fame that I aim to name is the fact that I am quite bald. Follically-challenged, I believe, is the politically-correct way to phrase it. And for the record, I do know most the bald jokes:

1. Heaven will be full of bald people, because there will be no "parting" up there;

2. I once had very curly hair; or, better stated, I had the waves, now I just have the beaches;

3. I have been hired by so many photographers, I have lost count; they use my "chrome dome" to provide for the glare for background effect;

4. And, hair today, gone tomorrow.

Okay, I exaggerate. But there are a number of advantages with being bald, and they touch on all the essentials of life, namely, time, money, and energy.

In terms of time, I spend seconds a day "combing" my hair; fingers left, fingers right, and I am ready for the next party. Or meal. When I hear of the hours that certain people put into getting ready, I just shudder. (Or maybe it's just envy, I don't know.)

Relative to money, consider the expense of gel, hairspray, hairclips, combs, brushes, haircuts, and so on. I don't waste a loonie on any of that stuff. On a slightly different note, my wife cuts all the boys' in our home (there are seven of us; you do the math in terms of monthly savings).

Finally, we think of advantages of baldness in terms of energy. I can brush my teeth and comb my hair at the same time. Or is it comb my teeth and brush my hair? Whatever I do, I just use one hand for each event. I even tried to save energy by combing (or brushing) my hair as I got out of bed. I poked myself in the eye too many times, so I dropped that energy-saving nonsense.

"Bald" has a nice association with it. When I think of land with potential, I would speak of a bald prairie. You have heard of a bald-face liar, but have you ever heard of a bald-head liar? Even America's favourite eagle is bald. Someone may have bawled like a baby, but they certainly never "bald" like a baby – unless they couldn't spell. (They could be as bald as a baby but...or forget it.)

Baldness never goes in or out of style. The waves of the 60s have been replaced by the ponytails of the 70s, which, in turn, changed again in the 80s, 90s, and these oh-ohs. But baldness – plain, boring, unimaginative baldness – just stayed the course. If someone with an ego, but no hair to match it, wanted to impress someone else, they could solve the problem in a moment. It's spelled W-I-G.

I have to laugh at these guys who start their part just above their ear and pull their hair over the rest of their head. Who do they think they're fooling? I once knew a guy who parted his hair at the back and brought his hair forward. Everytime there was a change in the air, there was a change in the hair.

So, while there is no mistaking me for Brad Pitt, I still maintain that bald is beautiful. Just ask Telly Savalas, Yul Brenner, or Elmer Fudd.

US Elections

I probably would feel a lot better about the USA if there wasn't a presidential race going on right now. Whatever is ugly, cruel, and faulty with the not-so united United States is being showcased as I write. The Democratic Party hopefuls, namely, Pillory Clinton and Barrack Obama, have taken politics to an all-new low.

(Note: I can spell. “Pillory” [verb form] means to attack or ridicule publicly and “barrack” [verb form] means to jeer loudly. This technique is what we punsters call a play on words.)

Americans need to ask themselves whether either one of these characters is morally or ethically fit to run the country. (“I” often gets in the way, and that could mean they would ruin the country, not just run it – pun absolutely intended.)

I love the States -- honestly, I do – but I can't stand its political machination. My own politics lies a little more to the right of the Republicans (Canadian equivalent of a hybrid between the Wild Rose Rose Alliance and the [federal] Progressive Conservatives). I don't know whether you care or not, but my all-time favourite president is Mr. Ronald Reagan.

Where the USA excels, however, in putting all other countries to shame, is what they are doing presently in Myanmar and China. I know they are in Iraq and Afghanistan, too, but not under these conditions. When I say “these conditions,” of course, I am referring to the horrific death and destruction caused by cyclone and earthquake, respectively.

Each time I turn on my radio or computer (read: my main news source), the numbers of those dead, dying, and displaced is mounting daily. By the time it is all settled – if that is even feasible – the overall impact will easily be in the millions of regular, normal human souls like you and me.

And that is where the USA comes in. Everytime. Everywhere. The sacrifical largesse of the States is, quite frankly, overwhelming. I would suggest to you that whenever and wherever there is a global or local calamity, the Americans are always there – and usually the first ones at it.

Funny, I never see a Pakistan or North Korea or Iran or Mexico or Sudan – among others – present at these tragedies. They are the takers within the global community. It is either the good, bad, or ugly (and imperialistic) Americans that show up. I have no idea exactly where the dry goods, water, bedding, and tents are stored on a regular basis. Nor do I have any idea how they can mobilize these humanitarian “troops” so quickly. All I do know is that when there is a catastrophe, the Americans show up immediately.

Not only do they do it, they have done it for decades, and unless Pillory or Barrack change things, it will continue for decades. They may mess with what Mr. Bush has done, both domestically and internationally (and I admit he has done some dumb things), but humanitarian aid is one thing thing they shouldn't touch.

It is just too bad that so much effort, energy, time, and money is being thrown around by merely two people, so they can run arguably the greatest country in the world. If they could get their priorities straightened out, they could then start applying all that effort, energy, time, and money to much greater causes.

You see, this strange juxtaposition, that is, bad times domestically but goodwill internationally, is the stuff history books are made of; a few paragraphs here just doesn't cut it, I'll admit.

So let me state it another way: When things are going well at home and petty politics reigns, the USA is in deplorable shape; however, when things are going poorly abroad and destruction reigns, there is no country like America.

One compromise would be that Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama take their show on the road (to, say, Kenya). No, that wouldn't work: They already have their own version of jungle politics.

Mother's Day

I live in a world surrounded by mothers. I look out my back seventy and I see mother cows, mother cats, and I am sure I have seen the odd mother gopher. (Okay, they’re not that odd.) I generally don’t bother to check the antelope, mice, and coyotes that invade my land as to whether they are the mommas or the poppas, but I am sure there is a nice mix among them.

And then there is my household: There is one mom here, the proud mom of nine children and one big grown child (that would be me). As you read this there are two more mommas present: mine and my wife’s (in for our son’s graduation). In fact, it would help if I said something nice about them because they’ll still be here as this edition comes out.

Moms make us all do strange, even stupid, things. For example, they will turn a 300-pound lineman into a blathering twit, after an interview, when he greets his mom - not his dad, not his wife or girlfriend - on national television.

And it’s the mom that kids go to for comfort, usually because they know she’ll not spank, scream, or snarl at them, something dads are prone to do. Methinks they see her as an easy mark. However, once the storm of discipline has blown over, the kids trundle on, leaving her in their dust until the next blow-up.

The strange thing is that she puts up with that. If it were me, I would probably spank, scream, or snarl at them.

The circles I run in honour motherhood. They see children as a blessing, not a bane; they view the traditional roles of motherhood as significant, meaningful, and productive. It is not uncommon for our family to entertain other families, with more than twenty people for supper. And I would quickly add that there is less chaos and disrespect at our diningroom table than I would find in an equally-sized classroom.

People take great liberties to ask my wife and me about our family size, and the personal part that goes along with it. Strange, brazen behaviour, I say. I don’t pry into their private affairs, so why should they pry into mine? We didn’t sit down on our wedding night and plan to have nine kids. But it wasn’t long after that we saw the value in having a large family. Demanding? Yes. Draining? Yes. Rewarding? Yes.

But this is a column about mothers, not about large families. I will write on another day of the desperate need for large families in Canada.

As I write, motherhood is fashionable in Hollywood. If you stand in line long enough at any supermarket, the magazine racks will dutifully inform you of how many pregnant actresses are, well, out there. (As if any sane person should take their cue on life from Hollywood.) But for the most part, motherhood is not fashionable anywhere. Limited motherhood is not only the norm, it is the preferred.

So kudos to you moms and moms-to-be. To say we wouldn’t be here without you would be trivializing the obvious. Suffice to say, there is no culture that survives without honouring its women in general, and mothers in particular.

Sleep: Good for What Ails You

Finish this sentence in the privacy and courage of your own bedroom: "I know I am tired when__________." If you have a burning urge to tell someone, then write it down, wad it up, and wing it out the window. And that could be the window of said bedroom, car, tractor, office complex or classroom. (Just make sure the window is down.) Here's my confession: I know I am tired when I let my daughter (or wife) do the driving, with me in the passenger's seat. That's how I felt yesterday when my piano-teacher daughter - Number Three, if you're counting (and still Number Three, even if you're not counting) - had to drive me home from work. It was one of those sudden and overwhelming feelings of exhaustion that hit me, sometime between Spelling and PE - between a base word and a baseline, if you will. By the time I got home I passed on supper, headed to bed for the evening. (Interpretation: When I skip a meal for sleep, I must be really tired.) I was comatose for hours, then staggered around till midnight, and finished off this grand scenario by sleeping in the next day. (Sleeping in, for an old goat like me, is sometime between 7:00 A.M. and 7:30 A.M.) While I am unaccustomed to spending any of your valuable time discussing the personal quirks of my household, I indulge here because I believe I have a possible solution for many of this world's ills. It's called sleep. And the more we do of it at certain, deliberate times, the better off we would be. If you sleep when you should be eating, you won't eat as much, unless, of course, you are counting sheep. (Uhmm, one lamb chop, two lamb chops...) If you sleep when you are sad, you will be sad for eight hours less. A hockey player can be complimented for being a sleeper, -- a guy with latent talent, I suppose. (Is that where the expression, "He shoots, he snores," comes from? I didn't think so.) If you sleep during church, you might sleep right through the offering, and thereby save a dollar a week. Speaking of sleeping in church, I don't drink coffee before I attend services: I tend to toss and turn all through the sermon. And on that coffee note: Some people cannot drink coffee after the middle of the afternoon, for the simple reason that it would keep them awake well into the night. That doesn't bother me at all: I can drink coffee just before I turn off the light, then sleep like a baby. It is a no-brainer that sleep is the ultimate panacea for headaches, listlessness, and overall weariness. On a slightly more serious note, I am alarmed at how many people I know that have some sort of sleep disorder. They either find it hard to go to sleep or hard to get back to sleep once they've woken up. I am no doctor nor the son of a doctor, but I wonder if they are too stimulated all day - and so nightfall becomes a real battleground to slow down, turn in, and drop off. There is little more satisfying than going to bed early, along with a good book and a mug of something hot (which is not the same as a pitcher of moi). Oh, one more positive solution that sleep brings: If you sleep when your daughter is driving, you will be freaked out less.