The year 1968 was a pretty tumultuous year as far as political events in the US were concerned. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Lyndon Johnson realized he had no chance to be re-elected as president because of his getting involved in a pointless war in Vietnam and all the lies he had told about it, so he announced that he would not be running for re-election. It seemed the country had learned some valuable lessons: it was time to get serious about gun safety and never again let a lying scumbag take this country into a senseless war in a distant land.

Meanwhile, spring term at Penn State was ending and I was going home a completely changed person from when I had left in the fall.

Well, my appearance had changed anyway, and I had picked up at least one very bad habit.

I had let my hair grow long because, well, it was 1968 and lots of guys were growing their hair long. Plus, I had grown a beard.

If I recall correctly, at that time the beard was merely a simple Van Dyke style consisting of a mustache and goatee, but except for a few very brief periods here and there, I’ve had a beard of some sort ever since.

The bad habit was smoking, and it took me something like 17 years to kick that filthy habit. One of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made was taking up that awful weed.

Finally, there was a new product on the market called Sudden Summer.

Someone got the bright idea to market bleach for men, the idea being to make your hair look like you’ve just spent a lot of time out in the sun.

For some reason my roommate Dave DeTullio decided he wanted to try it, I’m not sure why. He had dirty blond hair and why he wanted to lighten it, or lighten just the top it, I’m not sure, but that’s what he wanted to do, and somehow he convinced me to try it with him.

Sure, why not? It wasn’t something I’d ever have even thought about doing a year earlier, but it seemed harmless, so why not give it a go?

So we both bleached our hair during the last few days of spring term.

And then we went home.

Well!

I expected to get a lot of grief for the bleaching, and the longer hair, but that wasn’t the main cause of razzing that I got. I didn’t even get much reaction to my smoking.

No, it was the beard that my parents keyed in on.

And it wasn’t only them. My uncle Curtis was probably the worst, but I guess I should have expected it from him.

Thankfully my aunt and uncle Joan and Mark were around to lend their usual support.