O O Ø O O O O
Facing Reality
Two months ago I hit the mountains for a day of skiing. The conditions were marvellous, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Being smart, or rather, having a smart wife, I put SPF 15 sun block on first thing in the morning. This was critical, because the sun blazed down all morning, and we absolutely roasted on the hill. It was perfect.
That night, when we hauled our bruised bodies back up to the hotel room in Canmore, I checked my face for damage. No vengeful rays had managed to penetrate my defences, so my face was still my natural of hue of white-and-freckles.
All, that is, except two D-shaped spots, high on either side of my forehead, where there was supposed to be hair.
Okay, this was a bit of a new thing for me.
My father’s side of the family seems to be a long line of baldies. Spence men seem to be well on their way to baldness by their mid twenties. Dad, however, has always had a pretty decent head of hair, and I never had any indication that something might be amiss. In fact, I’ve always had a lot of very plain, very straight hair. And besides, you get that from your mother’s side anyway, right? Grandpa Toma had hair on top right until the end.
So why the dual mini Dolby-shaped sun burns?
I honestly believe that the recent stress of my job (electric industry deregulation), and my personal life (wedding), caused some of my hair to fall out. I remember washing my hair the day after the wedding, and noticing several short strands stuck to my hand. I thought nothing of it, but it continued that way for the next week or so, until sometime in the middle of the honeymoon. I haven’t seen too many more strands left behind after shampooing, so this appears to have been a short lived exodus.
Now, however, I have to recognize that I have a forehead that is wider than that to which I have become accustomed to applying lotion.
Who would have thought this could happen to me?
Evan Spence
Tuesday, June
26,
2001
PD DI