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Last
night my 16-year-old son, Jon, came downstairs to say good-night. When
he gave me a hug, I smelled something I had never smelled before – at
least, not on him. And I’ve got to tell you, it made my blood run cold
as I flashed back to my own history and considered the possible
traumatic implications for my son.
“What’s that smell?” I asked as I
held him close.
"You know what it is,” he said,
squirming to get away.
“I think I know,” I said. “But I
want you to tell me.”
He laughed as he pulled away from
me. He’s doing that a lot these days: laughing at me as I try to
control him physically the way I used to. He’s almost as tall as I am
now, and – don’t tell him this, OK? – probably stronger. I still have
weight on my side – and my front and back, too, come to think of it – so
I can probably still handle him. But it isn’t easy, and he knows that.
“It’s after-shave,” he said, trying
to cover his blushing with a last little shove.
“No way!” I exclaimed. “And why
did you put on after-shave? Is ‘Hannah Montana’ on or something?”
“No,” he said. “And I don’t put on
after-shave to watch ‘Hannah Montana.’”
Good thing. He had put on enough of
the stuff that it probably would have made poor little Hannah’s eyes
water – even all the way out there in California.
“So . . . that means . . . you
shaved?”
Now he was really blushing, so of
course he had to jump on me. Long arms and legs flailed in the living
room as we performed the curious male “I’m embarrassed so I’m going to
physically attack you” ritual. Eventually we collapsed, as much from
the stingingly pungent aroma in the air as from the exertion of
father-son bonding.
“So how long have you been
shaving?” I asked.
“Oh, since our choir tour in
April,” he said.
“You’ve been shaving for two months
and I didn’t know it?” I asked.
“Well, actually, this is the first
time since then,” he admitted.
I understood. I don’t think I
actually shaved until I was a high school senior. The joke among my
friends was that I shaved every two months whether I needed it or not.
Mostly not.
This was the early 70s, the era of
long, bushy sideburns and Fu Manchu moustaches. I had friends who could
grow full beards, for Pete’s sake, and I was still carefully and
meticulously combing my hair down onto my face in a pathetic attempt to
make it look like sideburns.
Which, by the way, it didn’t.
Still, I tried. I did the teenage
version of the comb-over and I splashed on Hai Karate and I even nicked
my face intentionally a couple of times just so I could say, “Oh man, I
cut myself shaving this morning” – just like the beardy guys.
Yeah, I know – it seems sort of
silly today, when I’d gladly trade my ability to grow sideburns for the
secret formula for NOT growing hair on my ears, in my nose and on my
back. But I remember what a big deal it was to me then, when it felt
like I was being judged for something over which I had absolutely no
control. And I assumed Jon was feeling a little of that same pubescent
helplessness. So I asked him: “Do you want me to show you how to
shave?”
“Nah,” he said. “My friend Cody
showed me. He’s been shaving since 5th grade.”
“And you’re OK with that?” I
asked. “I mean, the fact that he shaves a lot and you . . . you know .
. . don’t?”
“Oh sure,” Jon said casually,
without a trace of trauma or adolescent angst. “The way I see it, he
shaves every day so he can have a nice, smooth face – like mine!”
And just like that my concern
melted away. Jon obviously has a better handle on the foibles of facial
folliclization than I had 37 years ago. Indeed, that seems to be
generally true of him and the rest of his generation. Not only are they
light years ahead of us technologically – no shock there – but they also
seem to innately understand stuff about life that we didn’t understand.
There are probably a lot of reasons
for that – some of them not altogether pleasant. But it fills my heart
with hope to think that as a species we’re actually learning something
from one generation to the next.
No matter how the next generation
occasionally smells.
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Joseph Walker
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