The nineties was a great hair decade.
I think we can all agree on that.
Exhibit A: Jason Priestly, Beverly Hills 90210, circa 1995.
In a word, Glorious.
Just glorious.
Flowing, wavy on top.
Close, but not too close, on the sides.
And those sideburns!
Neatly trimmed and squared off at the bottom of the ears.
That was the look of the nineties.
Even before Priestly had achieved iconic status as the nineties hair standard-bearer, I’d sported a similar look.
Around 1986, I moved my part from the middle of my head to the side.
The middle part made it easier for you to feather your hair, a la Alex P. Keaton, which is what you did for much of that decade.
But, late in my seventh-grade year, I discovered I had this great cowlick on the right side of my forehead that, when I parted my hair on the same side, gave me the same wavy look as Priestly’s.
It was a highly fortunate turn of events.
From then on, my hair became one of my distinguishing features.
In a good way.
There was, however, an unfortunate period of about five years in which I also elected to keep my hair long-ish in the back while keeping it neatly trimmed on the sides.
It was a look Brett Hull and other pro hockey players had made famous.
You may know it by its more colloquial name:
The Mullet.
Even more unfortunate, my Mullet phase peaked at the time of my high school senior pictures.
There I was, smiling, in jacket and tie, standing in the photographer’s studio in front of a shelf of fake books, poised to dash off to Harvard Yard . . .
Looking like Joe Dirt from the shoulders up.
I know, I know.
But you don’t realize you’ve fallen victim to one of the most highly regrettable style trends of the late-twentieth century while you’re living it.
Only after.
And now, strangely, The Mullet is back.
Anyway.
A couple of months after my senior pictures were taken, I had my hair cut short in back.
But I kept it flowing and wavy on top.
And thus began one of the greatest hairstyling runs of my life.
My nineties hair.
This, even as I entered military service.
I enlisted right after high school.
Which could have ruined my look in its infancy.
And that is exactly what would have happened had I joined the Army or Marine Corps.
Instead, I joined the Navy.
And there, I found the most permissive of all military hair environments.
Sure, I had to get my head shaved in bootcamp.
Which was certainly traumatic.
But my hair had mostly grown back by the time I graduated.
It lacked the same flow, but that returned shortly after.
And then I reported to my first duty station, an aviation squadron in Puerto Rico.
Where I found not only a highly supportive work environment,
But also a hair culture in which I could unequivocally thrive.
“Navy Air Has The Hair,” as General Charles Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, would later tell me.
The General was exactly right.
This one guy in my squadron perfectly embodied the Naval Aviation hair ethos.
Lieutenant Maddox.
I was young—still a teenager.
And highly impressionable.
It was critical that I have good hair role models.
Especially after The Mullet.
The lieutenant was exactly that role model.
He was an F-14 Tomcat pilot.
That alone was qualification enough.
But he was also tall, built like a D-1 tight end, and had a casual nonchalance that made him the coolest cat in any room.
And his hair . . .
It was blonde, slightly unkempt, and long enough to skirt the edges of regulation.
He looked like a pro surfer, but with Jason Priestly’s sideburns.
And when he was all geared up in a G-suit, swinging a helmet bag, walking the flight line, I mean . . .
How did Jerry Bruckheimer not cast this guy in the original Top Gun?
I carried the image of Lieutenant Maddox with me to Annapolis and through my entire Naval Academy experience.
It sustained me. Inspired me.
And my hair, in turn, inspired others.
When I was set to depart the Coast Guard Academy following a semester as an exchange student my junior year, I was presented with a gift.
It was a hand-drawn, professional-quality cartoon, produced by one of the underclassmen in my company.
And it was all about my hair.
The caption read, “Dan is nice. He doesn’t yell. He isn’t snobby or self-centered. And he has really cool hair.”
(Emphasis in the original.)
It still hangs on my wall.
And I’ve left instructions for its care in my will.
Yeah, I had a pretty damn good run.
And then I went to flight school.
There, I discovered my nineties hair to be highly impractical while wearing a helmet most days.
I cut it short and flat.
And kept it that way into the early two thousands.
Low maintenance: That was my new hair mantra.
But when I departed the cockpit and the active-duty Navy for business school, I decided to let it flow again.
Not in the same, 90210 kind of way.
Rather, I just let it get shaggy.
I was a graduate student, after all.
Class pictures were taken late in the first semester.
My classmates and I donned suits.
And my shaggy hair seemed inappropriate to the occasion.
So, I combed it, Mad Men style.
Hard part on the left slide, slicked back in front.
I thought it looked fantastic.
But I was apparently the only one.
“You look like your mom combed your hair,” said one of my more outspoken classmates.
What?
When I shared the comment with my wife, she lit up.
“Yes!” she said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
To hell with both of you, I thought.
And, for the next decade, I returned to the Don Draper look from time to time, trying to figure out how to get it right.
Barbers encouraged me along the way.
“I think this is a really good look for you,” said one who’d been cutting my hair for three years.
I flourished under her care.
And then summer rolled around, and I got annoyed with my long hair.
Cut it, I instructed her.
I wanted low maintenance again.
She didn’t take it well.
“No, no, no . . .” she pleaded. “I mean, yes, I can cut it. But then what?”
She started to get a little emotional.
“This is your gift,” she continued. “And you’d be depriving the world of that gift.”
True story.
Damn, I miss her.
And I miss my nineties hair.
So, guess what?
I’m bringing it back, folks.
That’s right.
I’ve decided to let it flow again.
It doesn’t move quite the same way it did when I was a teenager.
And that’s apparently normal, according to my current barber.
He’s all in favor of my growing it back out.
Because he, too, understands it’s my gift.
The truth is, any hair is a gift at this point, let alone a long, flowing mane.
Things are looking great so far.
This is me.
The real, honest me.
With my nineties hair.
So, thank you, Jason Priestly.
Thank you, General Krulak.
Thank you, Lieutenant Maddox.
And thanks to all the barbers through the years who believed in and supported me.
Hair is a journey.
And I’m happy to be coming home.
And, no, dammit!
My mother did not comb it.