theusual

It's Saturday morning, and I feel fine. I got a haircut yesterday. (That's not necessarily why I feel fine.) Evelyn cuts my hair. I went from Kindergarten at Palmer school clear through graduation in 1983 at Kokomo High school with her daughter Lee Ann. In kindergarten through fifth grade, Evelyn was a "room mother." That's what they called the mom's who always came in to help with class parties, field trips and the like. Since I was 5 years old, I've known Evelyn. She started going to beauty school about the time Lee Ann and I went to high school. My mom insisted I let Evelyn have a chance at cutting my hair. I think I was 15. I remember the first time. It seemed like it took an hourand it probably did. She kept taking off just as little of my brown curly hair as possible at a time. "It's easier to take more off than it is to put it back on," she saidand has said inumerable times since. It seemed for the first year or so, she was as careful and as cautious as if it were my first haircut with her"How did you want it?Is that enough?I don't want to get in a hurry and do something you and I aren't happy with." It seems only the last several years that she says, "Your usual, short?" "Yeah," I say. She's only been cutting my curls for about 19 years, now. I've only known her for about 29 years. As I stopped to calculate these numbers, I was somewhat amazed. Am I old enough to have known someone other than my parents for 29 years?! How could anyone have the same hairstylist for 19 years?Let alone a youngster like myself! Believe it or not, in 19 years, I could probably count the times on one hand that I had someone else do my hair. And those times were when Evelyn was unavailable. She's always been first string. Funnywhen we're both in the same room, the dynamic seems somewhat like it always hasSubliminally, she's between 30 and 40, and I'm a youngster. Reality is that I'm now the age that she was when I was an elementary student at Palmer school. And now, I have kids in school. Yesterday, she told me that one of her brothers passed away last week, and that she'd been in Tennessee for the funeral. That reminds us of our actual ages. It takes something like that to do it. She always seems between 30 and 40 to me. More often than not, we don't talk that much during haircuts. Enough for us both to keep up on the major events of each other's lives, and on each other's families. Once every 4 to 6 weeks we get together for 30 to 40 minutes, the same way we have for "gulp" 19 years. Living in the same town I have grown up in is a series of random and often sparse events that remind me of certain times in my life. A drive downtown on Sycamore street reminds me of the music store where I took my first 8 year old drum lesson with a high school kid named Jim Donaghy. A drive down an alley on the 700 block of S. Washington reminds me of playing with Hot Wheels in Jon Nutt's sandbox, pretending to be Indy drivers like Bobby & Al Unser, Lloyd Ruby, A.J. Foyt, or Mario Andretti. A drive into UCT Park takes me back to playing first base for "Yogi's Coneys." A yard in the back of a house on the corner of King and Washington Streets had the rummage sale where I bought my first full-sized blue sparkle drumset for $50. It seems I'm trying so hard to live life in the "now" or into next week, and all of these mundane places take me back 2 or 3 decades. And rarely a hair cut goes by without an ancient rememberance. "Do you remember when Jim Haberfield? What WAS the art teacher's name?" Evelyn and I don't really talk that much...about real life stuffBut perhaps we have more shared life experiences than a lot of other people I know. "She knew me when"



	6/5/99 10:29 am of (course) "The Usual" -Morgan Young It's Saturday morning, and I feel fine. I got a haircut yesterday. (That's not necessarily why I feel fine.) Evelyn cuts my hair. I went from Kindergarten at Palmer school clear through graduation in 1983 at Kokomo High school with her daughter Lee Ann. In kindergarten through fifth grade, Evelyn was a "room mother." That's what they called the mom's who always came in to help with class parties, field trips and the like. Since I was 5 years old, I've known Evelyn. She started going to beauty school about the time Lee Ann and I went to high school. My mom insisted I let Evelyn have a chance at cutting my hair. I think I was 15. I remember the first time. It seemed like it took an hourand it probably did. She kept taking off just as little of my brown curly hair as possible at a time. "It's easier to take more off than it is to put it back on," she saidand has said inumerable times since. It seemed for the first year or so, she was as careful and as cautious as if it were my first haircut with her"How did you want it?Is that enough?I don't want to get in a hurry and do something you and I aren't happy with." It seems only the last several years that she says, "Your usual, short?" "Yeah," I say. She's only been cutting my curls for about 19 years, now. I've only known her for about 29 years. As I stopped to calculate these numbers, I was somewhat amazed. Am I old enough to have known someone other than my parents for 29 years?! How could anyone have the same hairstylist for 19 years?Let alone a youngster like myself! Believe it or not, in 19 years, I could probably count the times on one hand that I had someone else do my hair. And those times were when Evelyn was unavailable. She's always been first string. Funnywhen we're both in the same room, the dynamic seems somewhat like it always hasSubliminally, she's between 30 and 40, and I'm a youngster. Reality is that I'm now the age that she was when I was an elementary student at Palmer school. And now, I have kids in school. Yesterday, she told me that one of her brothers passed away last week, and that she'd been in Tennessee for the funeral. That reminds us of our actual ages. It takes something like that to do it. She always seems between 30 and 40 to me. More often than not, we don't talk that much during haircuts. Enough for us both to keep up on the major events of each other's lives, and on each other's families. Once every 4 to 6 weeks we get together for 30 to 40 minutes, the same way we have for "gulp" 19 years. Living in the same town I have grown up in is a series of random and often sparse events that remind me of certain times in my life. A drive downtown on Sycamore street reminds me of the music store where I took my first 8 year old drum lesson with a high school kid named Jim Donaghy. A drive down an alley on the 700 block of S. Washington reminds me of playing with Hot Wheels in Jon Nutt's sandbox, pretending to be Indy drivers like Bobby & Al Unser, Lloyd Ruby, A.J. Foyt, or Mario Andretti. A drive into UCT Park takes me back to playing first base for "Yogi's Coneys." A yard in the back of a house on the corner of King and Washington Streets had the rummage sale where I bought my first full-sized blue sparkle drumset for $50. It seems I'm trying so hard to live life in the "now" or into next week, and all of these mundane places take me back 2 or 3 decades. And rarely a hair cut goes by without an ancient rememberance. "Do you remember when Jim Haberfield? What WAS the art teacher's name?" Evelyn and I don't really talk that much...about real life stuffBut perhaps we have more shared life experiences than a lot of other people I know. "She knew me when" And both of our lives are aging. At some point, she may retire from her business on the back of her house. How is it that a haircut can make you think about mortality? I suppose because it's inevitable. It's a thought I'd rather not dwell on, though. "I'll have the usual, short, and a rememberance."