My Hair
I loved my long hair. Ever since I was born, only my bangs had been trimmed. As far back as I can remember, people would look into the baby carriage I was in and ask Mom how old I was, amazed by how much hair I had. I began to understand that not everyone had hair as long as mine. It made me feel special.
Whenever Grandma watched me, she would tell Mom it was time to cut my hair. Grandma said it was too much work. Mom told Grandma she wanted it left long and that she wasn’t going to cut it.
July 10, 1967
Mom went on vacation. As usual, Mom’s vacation didn’t include Sander or me. Mom went to Italy with a girlfriend. Grandma didn’t want to watch Sander because she said he was too much for her to handle, so Mom had a member of our ward watch him. I was excited to spend time with Grandma by myself.
Mom was barely out the door when Grandma told me it was time to cut my hair. I told Grandma I didn’t want it cut. She told me short hair would look so pretty on me. Besides, it was summer, which would make me feel much cooler.
Grandma would not let up. She finally convinced me that short hair would make me look so much better. I trusted Grandma, so I gave in.
Grandma got the biggest scissors she could find from Mom’s drawer. Then she hacked my hair—first one braid and then the other.
I ran to look in the mirror, expecting to see myself looking pretty. To my horror, it looked choppy. I burst into tears.
Grandma told me it looked terrible because it needed a trim. She had me sit still as she “trimmed” it. No matter how much Grandma cut it, she couldn’t get it to look even. When she finally gave up, my hair was shorter than before. It was chopped into different lengths.
I looked in the mirror again, hoping to see if it looked better. I cried harder than I ever had before. I would try to forget about it, but then I would look in the mirror, hoping somehow my long hair had returned.
No matter how much I cried or how many times I looked in the mirror, my hair was gone!
When Mom returned from Italy and saw my braids had been cut off, she yelled at Grandma. Grandma left crying.
Mom took me down the street to the barber, where Sander always got his haircut.
In those days, there were two different places to get your hair cut. One was a Barber for men, and the other was a Beauty Salon for women. I will never understand why Mom chose to take me to the barber.
When we arrived, she asked the man to style my hair. I still remember the pain when the barber took the buzzer to the back of my neck. The razor must have been dull or broken because it burned my neck and pulled at my hair.
I started to cry and said it hurt. The man looked at the buzzer and said it was fine, then he told me to sit still and behave! As he continued, I wanted to scream out, “Stop! You are hurting me!” Instead, I sat there doing my best to be good.
To finish the job, the barber shaved the back of my neck. I thought the barber was going to fix my hair and not shave off what little was left! When he was done, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I looked just like a boy!
The next day, when I arrived at the daycare, the staff didn’t recognize me. They thought I was a new boy who had enrolled at their center.
At the end of the day, when Mom came to get me, she could tell I wasn’t myself. When we got home, Mom kept reassuring me that my hair would grow back.
The following Friday, Mom allowed me to go with Dad. When he came to pick us up, he was upset to see that my hair had been cut off. He asked me why I had let Mom do that to me. I felt like it was my fault.
I didn’t realize how much it meant to me that Dad would brush my hair. It was our one-on-one time together. I went and got the brush and handed it to him just like I always did. Dad laughed. Then he asked me, “What do you want me to do with it?” He told me to get a comb and do it myself.
Dad told me never to allow Mom to cut my hair again. He said if I left it alone, it would grow back. That was much easier said than done! Every time my hair grew just a little past my ears, Mom would take me back to the barber to have him give me the same haircut.
I pleaded with her to let my hair grow back. Mom told me it needed to be trimmed so it would grow back faster. Over the next four years, I was not allowed to have my hair much past my ears.
September 1967
I drew this picture because whenever Sander would hit me, I always wished he would get in trouble. I always hoped that Mom would take him by the arm and get him away from me.
Fall 1967
I looked forward to Friday, because I just assumed Mom would let me go again. When Friday came, Mom told Sander he could go to the corner and wait for Dad. I was told I had to stay home. I couldn’t understand why she would not let me go. I cried myself to sleep.
The next day, Saturday, Mom told me to go outside and play. As I was playing in the little wooden house by the sandbox, two older girls showed up. They told me to go away because this was their private playhouse. I told them it was here for everyone to play with. They responded that if I didn’t go away, they would beat me.
I started to walk off, then I turned to them and said, “I am going to get my mom and tell her what happened.” They yelled back, “Go ahead, and we will tell her it was you who is causing trouble!”
I stormed off to get Mom. I told her what had happened. Mom came back to the playground with me. I pointed to the two girls and said, “These are the girls I was telling you about.” I was so sure Mom was going to tell them I had just as much right to be there as they did.
The girls then told Mom they didn’t want me there because I was causing trouble. Mom turned to me and asked, “Is that true?” I assured Mom the girls weren’t telling the truth. Then one of the girls pointed to me and said, “She is a liar!”
To my disappointment, Mom told me I had to be nice or else no one would ever want to play with me. As Mom and I were walking back, I turned to look at the girls.
They were standing there, pointing and laughing at me. I tried to tell Mom what really happened, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Instead, she told me that unless I changed my ways, I would never have any friends, and no one would ever like me.
Even though I knew I was innocent, it affected me for years to come. I was afraid of making new friends and thought no one liked me.
The next day, Sunday, I went to church with Mom and Grandma. After church, Grandma came home to join us for dinner. I asked Mom to sing the song we’d sung at church. Mom asked me what song I wanted her to sing. I told her the one about the horses galloping in the field.
Mom and Grandma looked at each other. At the same time, they said, “What song are you talking about?” Mom assured me that they had never sung any song about horses.
I couldn’t understand it because I was sure I had seen horses in my mind going through a large dusty field. I said, “It’s a song about horses galloping in a field.”
Grandma got the songbook out and looked at the songs sung at church that day. Grandma found each song and sang it to me.
When she came to the song called, Come, Come Ye Saints, I said, “Yes, that’s the one!” Grandma and Mom laughed. Grandma then finished singing the song for me. I asked her, “Are you sure this song has nothing to do with horses?” Grandma assured me that nowhere in the song did it mention them. I was confused.
I was sure the song was about horses. From that day on, it became one of my favorite hymns. I named it, “Come, Come God’s People, Go Forth in the fields Galloping.” Every time I would hear it, it was as if I had heard it somewhere before.
Years later, I learned this song was written in 1846 by a man named William Clayton. He wrote the song to give hope to the Latter-day Saints crossing the prairie. Some of the saints rode horses, and others were in wagons pulled by horses.
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