The Barbershop Blues

Not too long ago, I took Little Mr. Coach to the barbershop. Mr. Coach had been promising to do it for ages, but somehow just never seemed to get around to it. And I knew exactly why.

The minute we walked in the door, the barber – a tall, imposing ex-Navy man named Bob – took one look at Little Mr. Coach’s blond hair and rolled his eyes. That was probably because he knows Little Mr. Coach was born with brown hair.

“It’s your favorite chlorine-damaged head of hair!” I said cheerily. Bob muttered something under his breath.

Little Mr. Coach climbed into the chair and Bob tried running a comb through the fine, shiny strands.

“There’s breakage,” he said.

“What’s that?” said Little Mr. Coach.

“It means I can break your hair off without even trying,” Bob replied. He tried combing it again but couldn’t.

“Oh, this is so damaged, it isn’t even hair anymore,” he said. “I don’t know how far down I’ll have to go.”

“Will I be bald?” Little Mr. Coach asked enthusiastically. Appearance-altering damage is pretty much everything a 10-year-old boy lives for.

“If it’s any consolation,” I told Bob, “my husband has a whole pool full of college guys whose hair is in much worse shape.”

That did not seem to console Bob.

“What if we shaved a circle in the back, you know like make it bald in the middle with hair around it?” Little Mr. Coach asked, again with great enthusiasm.

“No, dear,” I replied. “They stopped doing that in the 1500's.”

Bob worked stoically for a good 20 minutes, chiseling down the strands on Little Mr. Coach’s head until a decent length brush cut emerged.

“Conditioner,” Bob said when he was done. “Don’t even think about bringing him back unless he starts using conditioner because he won’t have anything left to cut.”

“Okey doke,” I said cheerfully and added a generous tip to the bill. Just like I always do.

Michael, SNL and the Future of the Sport

Is anyone else out there nervous about Michael Phelps’s appearance tomorrow night on Saturday Night Live? Sure, he did a heap of good for the sport with all those gold medals, world records and overall good sportsmanship, but you realize of course he could destroy the entire sport tomorrow night.

Oh, no, you people read the Internet. You KNOW what some of those Internet haters are going to do to him (and us, by association) if he so much as flubs one line or flashes those famous bicuspids when he shouldn’t. It’ll be all, "Sure, Michael Phelps can swim faster than I can walk, but he can’t deliver a punch line to save himself! Ha, ha! Swimming sucks!"

Little age-groupers who started the school year with their heads held high and their little swimmer biceps on display are going to get to school on Monday and hear, "Michael can’t do a spit-take! Swimming sucks!"

The high schoolers, who finally grew in a crop of undamaged hair and got invited to the cheerleaders’ table to discuss the men’s 400 free relay over lunch, are going to find themselves exiled to the back table with the exchange students – from France.

The college coaches, who had been invited to sit next to the A.D. at department meetings and debate the merits of 25 yards or 50 meters if the school built a new pool, are going to arrive at Monday’s meeting and find averted gazes and stifled snickers. Except for the women’s golf coach who’s going to say something like, "It’s OK, even Eun-Hee Ji didn’t know how to cross to stage left and deliver a line into Camera 3 when she started out."

But, maybe, just like in that 100 fly, Michael can pull it off. Instead of gliding in, he’ll take that extra stroke and nail it. Yeah, maybe those writers can think up something as brilliant as that men’s synchronized swimming skit from...oh jeez, it was 1984, wasn’t it? That’s a long time between decent aquatic-humor sketches, isn’t it.

But, no, it’s going to be OK. It is. Probably.

Swimming Rites of Passage

(Or: Why Mothers Develop Nervous Tics)

Earlier this summer, I had to fetch Little Mr. Coach from a swim camp that he and his father attended. Mr. Coach was booked to coach all three sessions of the camp, but Little Mr. Coach had to return home early for his summer swim league championships.

So, after a brisk 10-hour drive, I arrived at the swim camp and headed for the campus natatorium where the last training session of the day was going on. Picture, if you will, this scene:

Me walking onto the pool deck just in time to see my son – my baby boy, the fruit of my womb, the only male of his generation in the extended Coach family – climbing the stairs to the top of the diving tower. Which he then jumped off, feet first, into the water which was 10 meters (or roughly 6 miles) below. And where was his father, you ask?

Herding more children up the stairs to the top of the diving tower.

Apparently, as I have since learned, it's a rite of passage in the swimming world for young people to hurl their bodies off towering structures into vats of water. Little Mr. Coach survived this rite of passage – though right before entering the water he unpointed his toes, so the soles of his feet were screaming at him for a couple hours afterwards.

But I should be grateful (and not just because I can still nurture the dream that my son will give me grandchildren some day). Apparently there is a variation on this rite of passage which involves nudity. I’ve been told, though I have not witnessed it myself, that during winter training trips college freshmen (and a few freshwomen) will perform this ritual without the benefit of clothing. I extend my heartfelt sympathy to the mothers of these ding dongs (especially if they fail to adequately protect their, you know, ding dongs).

Other rites of passage (which I would like to point out do NOT exist in the track world from whence I came): writing on each other with Sharpie markers (Mr. Coach tells the parents of new swimmers not to worry, the ink comes right off with a belt sander); letting your hair get fried from chlorine (because nothing says "Date me!" like hair that crumbles when you touch it); and shaving all the hair off one’s body before a big competition.

Mr. Coach was still in the habit of "shaving down" (though for triathlons) when I married him.

Yes, there is truly no moment more special in a new and potentially fragile marriage than the first time a husband asks his wife to shave his back for him. It’s a moment that ranks right up there in specialness with the moment when the wife realizes her leg hair grows back way faster than her husband’s.

So I can only hope that, by the time it comes time for Little Mr. Coach to get his back shaved, Adolph Kiefer and his wonderful associates will have invented something that, with one good zap, can blast the hair off an athlete’s body. Now THAT would be a rite of passage.