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He’s Not Bald After All. Thank You, Covid-19. Sheltering at Home Week 28

September 26, 2020 By Barbara Falconer Newhall 4 Comments

not-bald yet.. jon-Newhall-at-Signal
Jon looked like this when I first met him. Not bald, not yet. Newhall Signal photo.

September 25, 2020. Sheltering at Home Week 28

We thought he was bald. We hadn’t seen serious hair on his head since, oh, the turn of the millennium.

We’ve always known, both of us, that Jon’s head of hair was on the skimpy side. When I first met him, Jon had lots of hair growing from the sides of his head. He had curly golden locks down to his shoulders, but nothing much on top. An insouciant chevron mustache covered his upper lip.

not-bald yet.. jon-newhall-Zodiac-News-Service
He looked like this a few years later. By then, Jon had lost the mustache and had let me trim his hair a bit. In this photo, Jon was hosting an office party for the alternative news service he’d founded, Zodiac News Service.  Jon Newhall photo

Long hair. Mustache. An apartment on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. And on display in his living room, an American flag with a peace symbol where the stars should be. Jon was a hip North Beach counter culture dude, and a cute one.

As the years went by, Jon’s hair got shorter and shorter, as each new hairdresser opted to crop Jon’s hair closer and closer to his head. Neither Jon nor I much noticed the transition.

He's Not Bald After All. Jon-and-Barbara-Newhall-2019
Celebrating a birthday at Chez Panisse, Berkeley, in pre-pandemic 2019. Not much hair there — on either one of us. Photo by Callie Weston

Finally by his last birthday, there was not much hair left on Jon’s head. His hairdresser had shaved it down to a wispy stubble. A few fuzzy spots remained, but that was about it.

But by then, we had resigned ourselves to the idea that Jon was, for all intents and purposes, bald.

But, thanks to COVID-19 and Jon’s decision to avoid unnecessary trips into shops, including his hairdresser’s, we have learned that he is not headed for total baldness after all. Jon’s got hair. Lots of it. Nice, curly, blond — OK silvery — hair.

Not-bald bald-man-with-hair
Not bald after all — hair began showing up on Jon’s head while sheltering at home. Photo by Barbara Newhall

It poofs out around his ears these days and it trickles down his neck. It’s hair and it’s there.

The mustache is gone, of course. And though he still has the American flag with the peace symbol on it, those shoulder-length locks are a thing of the past. Jon is not a hip North Beach counter culture dude any more.

But he’s still cute.

Have you and yours been missing baseball, football, basketball? Read about why at “My Guys Are Talking Sports and All Is Right With the World.”  More thoughts on guys at “Shepherd Bliss and Men’s Secrets — No Women Allowed.”

american-flsg-with-peace-symbol

Filed Under: My Ever-Changing Family, Sheltering at Home Chronicles

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dee Cole says

    November 13, 2020 at 3:48 am

    Hi Barbara, I lived on Union St, Telegraph Hill, and worked as a hygienist at 450 Sutter and got to know Melvin Belli, Herb Caen not to mention Carol Doda! Do you remember Julius Castle? There was a neat Deli and food store right across the street. Seems like a lifetime ago.

    Reply
    • Barbara Falconer Newhall says

      November 13, 2020 at 11:00 am

      Hi Dee, Julius Castle! Carol Doda! San Francisco has changed so much. It used to be such a sweet place that did not take itself seriously. And now it’s all business. A December, 2019, item On Eater SF, reported that Julius Castle was to reopen at the end of this year. I wonder how that is going….
      https://sf.eater.com/2019/12/19/21030558/julius-castle-telegraph-hill-nimby-sf-reopening

      Reply
  2. Dixie Clow says

    September 28, 2020 at 7:49 am

    The old Signal photo is fantastic!

    Reply
    • Barbara Falconer Newhall says

      September 28, 2020 at 11:30 am

      So true. That was taken before I knew Jon, but that’s the look he had when I first spotted him.

      Reply

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