May 1935:

Another school year had ended but this one was different for me. I was no longer a junior high school student. I had graduated. It was all over except for the ceremony. I never figured out why, but the eighth grade class had to assemble for a final hurrah. We had to dress up and go to a graduation exercise. We all got a certificate saying that we had finished eighth grade. A report card had been enough before that.

A tradition existed that I had hardly noticed before. I was soon reminded however. The high school boys had a tradition of initiating the new boys into high school with a brand new haircut. No sooner than the ceremony was over than some big guys with their clippers were busy with their first victims. There was no such welcome for the girls. I stayed close to my parents all the way home thus avoiding being a victim myself.

A day later:

I got up, washed and combed my substantial shock of hair and tended my business as usual for a day off from school. I actually forgot about the boys who got trimmed last night. Early in the afternoon I walked to the football field where there were bound to be some guys playing touch football or some game I could join. As I expected, I saw familiar faces of schoolmates and a couple of bald heads I didn’t recognize at first glance. I finally recognized the faces of recent eighth graders that the lack of hair camouflaged.

“Looks like the guys with the clippers caught you two,” I said when they came within earshot.

“Yeah, they did such a bad job we had to get it all cut off. You should have seen us before that,” Paul answered. I joined the game for a while but I didn’t do very well. I kept watching for the guy with the clippers.

Two days passed:

On my way to the grocery story to get something for Mom I ran into Charlie. He had the weirdest haircut that I had ever seen. He had a clipper-wide swath of stubble from the middle of his forehead to the back of his head. That wasn’t all. There was a second swath running from his left ear to his right.

“Looks like they caught you, Charlie,” I said.

“Yeah, they snuk up on me when I wasn’t lookin’. I’m on the way to a barber right now,” he said.

Returning home with my groceries I met Bill who had a Mohawk style hairdo.

“I just saw Charlie back there. He looked a lot worse than you do,” I said.

“They got me when I wasn’t looking. But I kinda like it this way. I may just leave it be for a while,” said Bill. The rest of the way home I kept a sharp eye out for high school boys who might have hair clippers in a pocket.

A week later:

I hadn’t seen any new haircuts for a while, but I kept watching for the “barbers” to appear. No sign of anyone suspicious made me relax a little then I spotted a couple of high school boys just down the street. I made a quick about face and headed in the opposite direction. And so the day went.

Early June 1935:

It had been several days since I had seen any evidence of new activity by the hair cutters. They must have called off the search, so I let down my guard and headed toward the football field. As I turned a corner I came face to face with the guy who carried the clippers. Before I could turn to escape, somebody grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms down. This was it. To struggle would have meant a lot of hair pulling to no avail. Since I submitted peacefully they were gentle and didn’t try to scalp me, just chopped it up a bit and welcomed me to high school. Back home that night my family had a hearty laugh at my appearance. Daddy took a coin from his pocket and said, “Here’s a quarter. Go see what the barber can do to make you look human again.”

September 1935:

Our class as freshmen looked much as it had in the spring except that most of the boys had somewhat shorter hair. But wait! Jimmie and Jack, the one with the beautiful red hair, had strange haircuts. Must have gone to a bad barber. No, I think the bad barber came to them as they came back to school. Then I realized that I was glad I got caught early in the summer so that I looked according to Daddy, “human again”.