The Great Airways Junior High School Sideburns Scandal of 1971

I woke up that morning in our very small house, in my very small bedroom, to my very small life. Little did I know life was about to change as I knew it. I was 15 years old, 6 foot tall, about 175 pounds and had naturally curly hair for which all of the older and bigger kids had always made fun of me and bullied me about my hair, even though in retrospect, none the kids were actually bigger than me. So you see, I could never grow my hair long like the rest of my friends, but I did do one thing most of them couldn’t, I could grow my side burns like Elvis Presley, so I did. I got up and had a little bit of breakfast, never was a fan of breakfast, ran out the door and on my way to school I went. I could throw a rock from my house at the school and hit it dead center, so it was nothing but a hop, skip and a jump to the front door of my school.

I set in homeroom and listened to all the announcements of the day.  Finally the bell rang to go to our first class. As I was walking to the stairway that led up to my first period class, one of our coaches came over to me and asked me to follow him. My coaches were usually reasonable and friendly people that I would do just about anything for. We went into the main office up at the front desk. The two other coaches, the principal and the school secretary were all there. Our head coach spoke to me about the fact he had asked me to cut my sideburns last Friday and gave me the weekend to do so. I explained to him that I thought he did not have the right to ask me to do so and that I would not do so. He explained that he also told me that if I didn't, he would cut them. I replied that I hated to go against what he wanted me to do, but he was not going to cut my sideburns. All four of them grabbed me and held me down while one of them shaved off my sideburns. I fought up to the last minute with all my heart, but realizing that they had a razor and that they were about to put it to my face, I decided to use a wiser head at this particular time and allow them to cut my sideburns in protest. The first thing I did was not to go to my class like I was told to do, but I went to the phone in the hallway outside of our gymnasium and in front of our cafeteria

and called my parents. My mother answered the phone and my father was not there at the time so I explained to her what had just transpired. She told me to go back to the office and wait there until she got there and I was not to tell anyone anything. I thought, oh no I'm in trouble now, she sounded so mad. So fearing the wrath of my mother, I went straight to the office and sat down. The secretary asked me “what are you doing back in here”. I told her I was unable to explain to her why, but that it would soon be apparent why I was back in there, all this time waiting for my mother to get ready and walk the short distance to my school. I was terrified now, not only would I have had the embarrassment of having my sideburns forcibly cut off, but now my mother was coming up there to have me punished even worse possibly, a paddling with one of the baseball bats that the coaches had our shop teacher plane down into a paddle with holes drilled up and down it to make it hurt even worse. I know that doesn't sound much like a punishment but unless you have ever had one of our coaches or our principal paddle you with the Louisville slugger, you've never endured pain. I was so afraid that the other kids would have seen me in the hall crying like a baby. I had not been able to stop crying since they forcibly cut off my sideburns. You see, they made me feel like I fit in with the other kids my age, most of them had long hair which was the fad at the time and because I was so afraid that if I grew my hair long I would look like Shirley Temple and that would just give the rest of the older boys even more ammunition to tease and bully me about something so personal. Unless you've endured that kind of humiliation, you just don't know how traumatizing that is to a young boy. I don't think I could even impress upon you the importance of those sideburns at that time of my life. As I said at the beginning, life as I knew it was now over. I had nothing to tie me to the other kids and make me just a tiny bit as mod or up with the fads as they were. I know a lot of you probably don't remember but being accepted by your peers at that age is probably the most important thing in the world, well at least at that time in my life, but before I tell anymore about this story I have to explain something to you about my mother. Thinking about it now, I don't think that I had ever seen my mother go against the system. She was always very compliant with the rules. She never made waves and always played the games strictly by the rules. She taught us that it was better follow the rules even if you didn't like because if it was the way you were supposed to do it because it would just make life so much less complicated and easier just to comply. Now that I've told you that,the door to our school office had one of those hydraulic closers that would not allow it to be opened fast so that it would close slowly. Bang! the door flew opened very quickly and smacked the back side of the glass wall. I thought it was truly going to break. My mother stopped and slammed her hands on the counter that surrounded the inner office area and told our secretary that she wanted all of the coaches and our principal there right now! The secretary explained to my mother that they had classes and she didn't think that they would be able to come right now. My mother slammed her hands back down on the counter again and said “they had time to do this to my son, they'll have time to see me now! Get them here now! If you don't, I'll go drag them up here!” Our principal stepped out of his office and up to the front counter

where my mother was and told her “Mrs House, you need to calm down and let us talk this over in a rational manner”. My mother explained to him “I don't find what you and the coaches’ have done was very rational so you need to have them up here now! No one's going to do this to my son without my permission”. The Principal said “I’ll get them up here and I'll explain it all for you”. He quickly went back to his office and all three coaches came through the door and back to his office. The principal came back up and asked my mother to come back there and I went back with her. “We don’t need you to come back now” said the principal. My mother responded to that  “Oh yes, he's going to be here. We was here when you did this and you're going to allow him to hear what I have to say.” They started to explain to my mother that they had asked me to cut my sideburns. She stopped them in midsentence and said “number one, you don't have the right to ask him to cut his sideburns when you have kids on your teams that have their hair grown down to their” bottoms, and my mother used a more descriptive term that I had never heard her use before to describe their bottoms. She said “further more, if it was some type of clothing or something that could be removed and replaced, I would not be upset but you actually altered my son’s physical appearance without my permission. If you ever touch one hair on his body anywhere without my permission and without me present, you will have to deal with me in a more physical manner. Do you understand what I'm telling you”. Our head coach explained that she didn't understand, “we have repeatedly asked him to cut the sideburns because they're not becoming of someone his age”. I saw her face get extremely red and she, with a quivering voice of extreme anger, answered him, “God gave him the ability to grow sideburns at his age. I personally think it was because he's unable to grow his hair long like the other kids. He only wants to grow his sideburns so that he would fit in with the other kids, yet you're going to try and take that away from him. Don't misunderstand me, if you had come to me instead of taking it upon yourself to do what you did, I would've cut his sideburns until we would've had time to talk to you about it and see if we could come to a better understanding but you didn't do that. You went above my authority as parent to allow my son to either grow his hair long or have painted toenails or grow his sideburns. You as teachers, coaches and administrators don't have that right. Only a parent has that right and again I'm going to tell you, if you ever touch one hair on his head, on his feet or on his cheek, you will have to answer to me and I don't think any of you would like to be a part of that scenario. Do you understand me”. I thought, my God my mother is defending me, that's never happened in my entire life. I was so proud to be her son at that moment because she was my hero, my knight in shining armor that had come to my rescue. She also told them that because of their actions, I would grow my sideburns and they wouldn't have anything at all to say about it unless they made the rest of the players on the various sports teams cut their hair. She told them if they did that she would feel that I would have to be obliged to cut my sideburns. I had no disagreements with that if all the athletes look the same.  Then why would I have the right to complain. She turned and looked at me and noticed that my face was drenched and burnt red from crying and told me to go and wash my face off in the boys rest room. I think she also did this so that she could have a private conversation without me present.  I went straight out to the closest boys restroom and washed off my face in cold water which made me feel somewhat better, but I was still going to be embarrassed because all of the other kids would notice that I didn't have my sideburns. I went back up to the office where my mother was waiting on me and she asked if I was all right and I said yes and I explained to her how I felt about the other kids seeing me without my sideburns. She told me that it would be okay, that sideburns grow back out and that I was not to worry about it anymore. That's easier said than done. I know it doesn't sound like much to you all but it was a traumatic experience to me. The people that I had looked up to for guidance and comfort had just done the most horrible thing they could do to me. They had removed my dignity. I have forgiven them but I have not forgotten. As I passed all my friends in the hall who were going down to their third period classes, they must have noticed that my head was hanging down and I wasn’t saying hello to everyone as usually did so they were coming up to me and asking if I was okay and telling me to have a great day. That made it a little easier to take what they had done to me, but I had yet to see my girlfriend at that time. I would have been so embarrassed to let her see me this way that instead of going the way I normally got to my third period class, I took the stairs on the opposite side of the hallway to go to my next class. I did everything in my power to keep her from seeing me that day and it worked. But unfortunately, that night my phone rang and it was her, she was mad at me because I had avoided her. She knew I had avoided her and she was so concerned as to how I was that she wanted to comfort me and I robbed her of that chance. You live and you learn maybe. I should have sought her out and let her tell me how badly she felt for me but the one person I did not need to hear that from was her. It would've made the hurt and embarrassment even more so before I had a night to sleep on it and come to terms with my situation. I grew my sideburns back and we won our division in football the next year, the final game where we defeated Sheffield Junior High School. I had gotten back on the bus and was sitting there and I heard two students from Sheffield complaining that that one kid was over 6 foot tall and looked like he had just gotten back from Vietnam and “did you see those sideburns. He has to be older than he is supposed to be to play junior high school football.  We should protest this game”. Oh, last but not least, most - if not all - of those that made fun of my curly hair are now bald.  The sweet smell of success! Look who's the only one smiling