ONLY THE GOOD “DYE”
YOUNG
The following terse
treatise relates to our School “Daze”. When we were in high school, many fads
came and went. One of my favorite fads was the Beach Boy surfer look. I always
liked the Beach Boy songs, as a matter of fact, I still do, as my extensive
collection of Beach Boy CD’s and other “surfing” music will attest to. At that time,
surfing and fast car music was “in”. As
a matter of fact, ever since then it has been “in” with me! Every one of us
guys wore “surfer crosses”. These were actually copies of the Iron Cross Medal
that Nazi solders got for bravery in World War 2. These were also known as
Maltese Crosses. We all wore cranberry sweatshirts. I was never sure just how
this pertained to the surfer craze, but nonetheless, I wore them too. If I do
say so myself, we looked pretty “cool” dressed in the sweatshirt and skin tight
“pegged” white Levis.
We all combed our hair straight down in front and had the “Moe Howard” look.
Since apparently all west coast surfers had blonde hair, some of the guys dyed
their hair blonde. Although Tim and I had most of the surfer accoutrements, we
never dyed our hair blonde. I liked sporting my jet-black hair. In those days,
my hair was very thick and the barber had to thin it out with scissors before
he could cut it. (I sure long for those days!). These days, all my surfing
activities only include “Surfing” the TV channels and the Internet!
One of our classmates, who
was also taken up with the surfer look craze was Gary H. He too dyed his hair blonde.
We were never sure if he used peroxide or what, but after a while, his “blonde”
hair had a greenish tint to it! It took a long time for his natural colored
hair to grow out again and during the interim; he received never ending teasing
from us! Never the less, Gary
continued with all the rest of us following the “Surfer Look Craze”. It’s
interesting to me that the root word in “craze” is “crazy”! Try telling that to
a bunch of 1960’s high school guys! Oh well, we continued with this until the
“Beatles Craze” came next. More on this “craze” in another story.
The only surfing I do
these days is “surfing” the Internet and “surfing” the channels. Ah, Gary would
be so proud and “green” with envy!
