Scandinavian hair

When I was young, I considered myself poles apart from both parents. With the unbounded ego of the young, I used to wonder, "How did these people give birth to ME?"

As I grow older, I notice increasing similarities to both my parents. Among other things, I seem to have inherited my father's hair.

As a kid, I used to think Dad's hair strange. I was born on my father's 49th birthday, so I remember only a fine soft gray thatch. I wondered how gravity permitted it to stand on end.

In the mornings, I liked watching him shave. He used a hand basin, a shaving cup and brush, a cutthroat razor and a small mirror set at the right angle on the window sill. His fine hair reached upward in undulating waves like underwater seaweed.

After shaving, he would wet his hair, part it and comb it down, pushing it deftly into the waves it naturally wanted to form.

My hair is also soft and fine. I used to be annoyed by its limpness. But recently, it seems to have metamorphosed. This morning I had to use water to forcibly subdue a large clump that was standing vertically on one side of my head. To no avail. Next time I glanced in the mirror, the obstreperous locks had risen again.

My reaction was also new. Instead of feeling annoyed and unlovely, I smiled wryly. Anti-gravity hair. Part of my Scandinavian heritage.