Bangs, Backpacks & Britches

Bangs. Did you have “bangs” when you were a kid? I know they were a big thing for girls, but remember how cool it was as a guy to have bangs? It was awful when it was haircut time – if you were like me, then mom did all the haircutting when you were young. She cycled through the styles… buzzcuts in the warmer months, and a decent covering throughout the rest of the year. How's that for an awesome school picture? circa 1968.

I think my favorite was having bangs, ‘cause I loved it when they got long. It felt so cool to have them over your eyebrows and getting in your eyes. Of course we were emulating the Beatles and the more we could look like the Liverpool Lads, the cooler we felt. And we also used to let the hair grow and hang down in front of our ears so we had “sideburns”. Then we kind of looked like Mr. Spock, and that was really cool, too.

As we got into High School, the bangs grew into “long all over” hair, with us constantly trying to whip our heads to keep it out of our face. And this eventually gave way to styled hair at “hair studios”. Oh, what a interesting hair tale we traveled.

Backpacks.
We never had them in school. We carried our stuff in our hands. We had books, Pee-Chees and notebooks, and we carried them. If the weather was bad, we put them inside our coats. We kept the supplies we used at school in our homeroom class and/or in our lockers. The fun thing about Pee-Chees was how we altered the drawings on them. More on that some other time.

These days kids seem to have everything and are prepared for a weekend camp-out every day that they go to school. Often the backpacks are bigger than the little kids hauling it. A change of clothes; a local bus, regional train and international airplane schedule; seeds and starter plants to plant their own garden… who knows what’s all really in there. I just know that we seemed to get by just fine with a lot less.

Britches. At some point in my life, I grew up enough to be wearing “pants” or “jeans”, or maybe even slacks. This did not, however, change the fact that my grandmothers would still comment on what a nice pair of britches I had on. It’s just one of those funny words that has, for the most part, gone the way of other words like trousers, stockings (guys socks – my dad still says this) and canvas high-tops.

What things do you remember having when you grew up that have been "replaced" or "improved" today?

Love That Long Hair!

Didn’t we all have long hair back in the ‘70s? I think that I was in my early teens when I started growing mine out – much to my mom’s chagrin. Up to that point, my brother and I had sported a large variety of haircuts.

When I was young, probably up until 2^nd or 3^rd grade, it was the buzz cut. So easy for mom to do… grab the clippers, put on the shortest attachment and shave away!

As we became more self conscious about what was cool in hair styles (and since it corresponded with the popularity of the Beatles) we all had bangs. And also – with Star Trek so popular, we all had “sideburns” (hair hanging down in front of our ears. We have a LOT of great pictures of these Beatles/Spock blended haircuts.

Somewhere along we started to really grow it out – I remember that at one time my hair was as long in front as it was in back… It was down to my chin! I had the real possibility of giving myself a serious neck injury due to the fact that I always had to cock my head to one side and flip my head to keep the hair out of my eyes.

I believe that it was when I was a junior in high school – and just prior to getting my first job – that I finally gave in to my mom’s persistent nagging and went to get a haircut at a “beauty school”. I remember it so well. It was embarrassing enough that I had to go to a beauty school, let alone that I had to have my beautiful locks shorn. Immediately following, I was sure that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. My friends who had yet to go “under-the knife” all let me know that I had “dorked out”, and I could only offer them that I knew I had made a mistake and I would let it grow out again.

Of course, I didn’t – and most of my friends eventually got their hair cut, too. And we all sported those feathered haircuts all the rest of the ‘70s. But that’s part of what made the decade so great!