Charles King’s hair once looked like a cross between “Jesus and an axe murderer!”
Posted by , February 21, 2010 at 8:08pm
Everywhere I go these days, people are talking about my twisted ponytail and how much they are going to miss it. But folk should know that my long locks were not always this way. In fact, if you look at my photos from the late 1980’s, I look like a cross between Jesus and an axe murderer. The ponytail came about as a matter of convenience, not style.
You see, believe it or not, I used to be a biker. My first bike was a Honda 500 CC street-legal dirt-bike. I rode that bike all over the great state of Texas, on road and off. Later, after I moved to New Haven, I bought myself a used silver Honda CBF 750. It was a beautiful bike. In fact, it was the highest-sitting bike ever made.
I was young and foolish at the time – as opposed to middle-aged a foolish now, and Connecticut did not have motorcycle helmet laws. Even before my Nazarite-like vow, I used to love pulling up to Immanuel Baptist Church or even a funeral home with my suit on and my hair flying in the wind.
The problem came up when I took the no haircut pledge. The longer my hair got, the more tangled it got every time I went for a ride. Increasingly, I was arriving looking less like Jesus and more like ax murderer. Combing it out even once a day was tedious and painful.
One morning, stepping out the shower, it occurred to me to try a ponytail with a twist, literally. As it turns out, if I just tie up my hair while still wet and then give it a nice twist, it dries into a reasonably tight curl that can fly in the wind without ever tangling. And that’s how the twisted ponytail became my trademark. Who knew that laziness would turn into such a fine and durable fashion statement! And we are all going to miss it…
Vote for Charles’ new hairstyle, bid against Rick Warren or buy a ticket to the big cut at housingworks.org/shearmadness
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