Thursday, 5/13

 I wonder if, in this instance, my mom is actually right?

Now don't get me wrong; my mom, like yours (I'm sure), is right about a lot of things. I'm always happy to get her take on things, and the fact that she managed to raise a family full of...unique individuals speaks volumes about her wisdom and her patience.

So she's right about a lot of things.

Of course, because she raised me (and my siblings) to be unique individuals sometimes we don't always see eye-to-eye on things. This was brought to the fore a couple of years ago when I was starting to host “High School Bowl” and asked readers of these ramblings whether or not I should cover up the gray hair on my head. Every single person but one said no, that the gray makes me look kind of distinguished. The only one who said I SHOULD color my hair was my mom, who said, and I quote here, “I'm too young to have a son on TV with gray hair”.

The fact that I did six years of the TV show with gray hair might indicate how much I paid attention to my mom on that occasion.

However, with the seventh season of the show just a few months away, I've begun looking at myself in the mirror. As much as I'm loathe to admit this, I seem to have developed a lot more gray than I had when I began this gig. I'm not totally gray; thankfully, it seems like half my hair is still dark brown. However, the patches of gray are growing, and they're especially notable when I wear gray or charcoal or some other similar colors. And since since a bunch of the suit jackets I own are those exact colors (to contrast with the colorful ties I wear), it seems as if they actually accent the gray in my hair.

And that's not necessarily something I want to happen.

I'm not saying I'm going to color my hair. After all, I've done six years of the show with (slowly) graying hair, and to show up for the seventh with my natural dark brown might lead some people to think that (gasp) I'm vain enough to color the gray. That's not to say I'm NOT vain enough to do it; I just don't know if I want people to notice it.

However, if I had taken my mom's advice when I started the gig, people would have only watched me with brown hair for six years. I could actually look at myself in the mirror and not sob quietly to myself. But no...I had to be unique and let everyone see the gray. And now, unless I turn it purple again, like I did last summer, if anyone sees me with anything BUT gray hair, they'll know I'm doing something to cover it up.

So thanks for the advice, Mom. In hindsight, it was really good advice. Maybe next time I'll actually take it.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)