Judge — January 16, 1926 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Sunny Side of Baldness by Don Herold AM not bragging, but it would I not surprise me if we all woke up bald-headed in the next world. I do not mean to ridicule hair and I do not wish to put hair on the defensive, but there seems to metobesomething spiritual about bald-headedness. I have been bald-headed for seventy-five years. I would never have noticed it if it had not been called to my attention. It has caused other people considerable misery and amusement, but it has left me flat and unconcerned, and this is the first time that I have ever brought the subject up for discussion. Let me make it clear that I do not share in either the morbidity or the amuse- ment with which my baldness seems to affect onlookers. I give it no emotional consideration one way or the other. Not even barbers make me morbid about it. If cornered ina social gathering, I can enter into a spirit of levity regarding it, but my normal attitude is that it is no affair of mine. It is only as a writer and asa public servant that I am discussing it now. A writer considers everything. It surprises me that I have not covered baldness long ago, because it would seem only natural that I should start at the top in my daily inventory of possible themes for metaphysical discourse. He—Brother, our carbolic shampoo will start hair on your head. Me—Brother, you are barking up the wrong tree. I consider hair a dis- traction. I stack my bald head up against Rudolph Valentino's Valsparred tres- ses and ask you which is the more spiritual and which is the more mate- rial. Iwin. I goastep in the direc- tion of the perfect sphere which Rupert Brooke, the poet, conceived as the more fitting form for all of us. It would not shock me if we all found ourselves much more like toy balloons in heaven, all floating about gaily in gentle breezes, discoursing on things eternal, undistracted by ap- pendages, undisturbed by such bothersome and irrelevant things as noses, ears, toes, fingers, and—hair. The Lord has struck a low average of beauty in His effort to give us individuality of form in this world and has only succeeded in providing subject matter for the pen of Rube Goldberg, so I imagine He will give up on that score in the world to come and content Himself in giving us individuality of soul, striking us all out of one mold as far as our exteriors are concerned. As I say, s a step in that direction. s partakes of nonentity. ‘To a certain extent, not very far I admit, I already float with some freedom through life, by virtue of my baldness. Iam relieved of the ordeal of comb and brush. I have not brushed my hair since 1911. This means a daily saving of perhaps five minutes or an annual gain of over thirty hours, or two waking days. Imagine ourselves relieved thus of all physical obligations, including the obligations of providing food for our inwards and shelter for our outwards, and you have almost pictured Utopia. As far as hair care is concerned I already dwell in Utopia. So I need neither sympathy nor advice. You can not comfort a man who thinks he is on his way to glory. Even though baldness may be a badge of decadence and decay, I do not suffer from it. I always hesi- tate to console a man who has one foot in the grave, because how do I know that he has not philosophized (Continued on page 26) Hussanp—In some families this would start a quarrel. comicbooks.com