ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 26, 1996 TAG: 9608270010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
THE Old Testament's Samson got his strength from long hair. The federal government put Ben Franklin's ponytail on the $100 bill. And by most accounts, Jesus wasn't exactly bald.
But do some still believe that every man who skips haircuts is a Unabomber in-the-making or a drugged-out hippie from the '60s who's still seeing rainbows?
In Roanoke last week, Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt said she had heard at least two council members make disparaging remarks about the appearance of ponytail-wearing Joe Nash, after Nash lost an appointment to an open seat on the School Board. Council members denied making such remarks, saying they were looking at the candidates' experience levels and not their hairstyles.
What are our attitudes about hair length and gender nearly 30 years after the Summer of Love?
To find out, The Roanoke Times interviewed a handful of area long-hairs.
GREAT DISGUISE
Det. CURTIS DAVIS works in the Roanoke Police Department's vice unit and sometimes wears his shoulder-length hair in a ponytail.
"People are more hesitant," he said. "They expect you to be a younger, wilder type of kid because your hair is long. It's more of a rebel look. ... When you're around people they view long hair as you're young and out of touch with society. My grandfather is always picking at me to get it cut."
Davis says he would likely wear his hair long even it didn't help out with his undercover work. But once he's out of vice, long hair is an unlikely option.
"In my line of work I may not get a chance to wear it long again," he said.
- DIANE STRUZZI
GOOD IN CERTAIN CIRCLES, BUT NOT IN OTHERS
JIM BORLING thought ponytails had become fashionable for men - and socially acceptable - when he started growing his hair long seven years ago. He since has learned otherwise.
Borling, 41, is the director of music therapy at Radford University, where he has been a professor for 15 years. He lives in Roanoke.
``When I'm just kind of living my life around Roanoke,'' he said, ``I know that people are often surprised to find out that I'm a college professor. I suppose, based on my look, they think I'm blue-collar or, and I hate this term, a redneck, or an old hippie.''
It's a reaction that bothers him, and he said it happens more often than not. ``It's disconcerting. I guess my hope is that people will look beyond that. It's too bad. I think it's a sad commentary on our culture.''
He thought once about getting a haircut. ``I was told by a good friend that the ponytail was holding me back in certain circles.''
But he said it was only a fleeting notion. He realized those weren't the circles he wanted to run in anyhow. In other circles, on the other hand, Borling said his hair style probably works to his advantage, particularly with colleagues in the music therapy profession. With them, he said, his hair makes him more immediately accepted.
- MARK MORRISON
'CAN I HELP YOU, MA'AM?'
EDDIE THOMAS, 37, has almost always had long locks.
But in "my line of work, it doesn't really affect me," said Thomas, who owns American Free Style Karate on Apperson Drive in Salem. "It's always been a personal preference. The only time it's ever bothered me is sometimes, when I go to K&W, they say, 'Can I help you, ma'am?'''
When he wears a suit and pulls his hair back, he said, he gets different treatment than if he's wearing jeans. "A ponytail seems more accepted than just letting my hair down."
The one time he cut his hair?
"I was an extra in 'Dirty Dancing' and had to whack it off for that," he said. "It wasn't fair. Patrick Swayze got to keep his."
- MADELYN ROSENBERG
THE JEFFERSONIAN LOOK
When ERIC SPENCER first steps into a courtroom, he looks like any other Roanoke lawyer - dark suit, bow tie, briefcase.
But a closer look at his hair, which is neatly trimmed on the front and sides, reveals that Spencer is, as he puts it, "the only ponytailed lawyer in town."
The tail is just long enough to keep Spencer's four-inch locks off his collar, but not long enough to distract from his otherwise traditional lawyer look.
"I wear the pin-striped suit and the white shirt too," Spencer said. "I just look Jeffersonian about it."
Spencer can't think of a single case he's tried in which his hair might have been a factor in the mind of a judge or juror. But when he represents someone charged with a crime, he's mindful that the case could turn on one juror's conservative, "get-a-haircut" mentality.
"I tell my clients to get a shave and a haircut" before facing a jury, Spencer said. "I don't want them to look like they just stepped off the cover of a ZZ Top album.
"If someone on the jury doesn't like long hair, then let them not like mine," Spencer said. "But I don't want them to hold it against my client."
In his 18-year career, Spencer's hairstyles have ranged from the "buzz cut" he wore while first breaking into Roanoke's legal community, to his current tail - which is constantly changing it its length and look.
"I'm the Hillary Clinton of local lawyers, as far as hairstyles go," he said.
- LAURENCE HAMMACK
HE WORE OUT TOO MANY COMBS
MARK TENNEY, the 34-year-old chef at the Texas Tavern, joined the clean-cut crowd about a month ago. Prior to that, he'd worn his hair long for more than 17 years. For the last six, he kept it in a pony tail.
"I needed a change. It was getting old. I was wearing out too many combs," the longtime counterman deadpans.
Tenney grew it long in high school, in part because he didn't like getting haircuts, and because "it was the thing to do then, the crowd I was in at the time. He can't count the times that friends and acquaintances have called him "hippie," but "I never felt it was derogatory," he says.
People who didn't know him, however, often made the hoary old mistake of judging a book by its cover.
"One day I was crossing the street and there was this car sitting at this light and there was this elderly lady sitting in it," Tenney recalls. "She must have had automatic door locks, because I heard them click. ... Just 'cause you have long hair doesn't mean you're a bad person, or a criminal."
On the other hand, the mane "would draw you to others. So it had it's ups and downs," he added.
Lots of folks have told him his haircut looks nice.
"It's a little more mainstream Roanoke," he says.
- DAN CASEY
NO WAY TO JUDGE SOMEONE
Salem's Vice Mayor ALEX BROWN wore his hair long in the early 1970s. But when he went into real estate, he cut it off.
"I think in my business, shorter hair would help me get along with a lot more people than longer hair," said Brown, who won his first seat on City Council in 1980.
But hair shouldn't be an issue when it comes to choosing the best person for a job, he said.
"I don't think that's a way to judge someone."
- SHANNON HARRINGTON
CHEAPER THAN GETTING IT CUT
When BO CHAGNON'S father discovered his son's ponytail, he wanted to know if it had any significance, if it was supposed to mean something.
"I said, 'It means I quit going to the barber.'''
Other than that, the 51-year-old musician hasn't caught much grief for his ponytail, which he started growing in 1992.
"It was sort of an odd set of circumstances," he said. He and a girlfriend had shared a hairdresser, and after they split up he quit getting his haircut because he didn't want to be reminded of the girlfriend.
Plus, "it was more economical to let it grow."
Besides music, Chagnon speaks to Unitarian Universalist church groups and works at Apple Ridge Farms.
He theorizes he gets no razzing for his hair because he doesn't really move in corporate circles.
But, via his 24-year-old ponytailed son, Chagnon is getting to know what it would mean to move outside his comfortable realm of follicular freedom.
His son is taking tests to become an actuary and will be looking for a job soon, probably in the insurance industry.
"He thinks he's going to have to cut his hair to fit in with the board room types," Chagnon said. "I think it's a shame that he has to."
- MATT CHITTUM
NO COMPLAINTS
BILL HALL, 48 of Martinsville, spends a lot of time in the sun as a construction worker for Osborne Co. His ponytail, which hangs about a third of the way down his back, "gives me a really good way to get hot hair off the back of my neck," he said.
No one's ever given him aany grief about it - not even his crew-cut and flat-topped coworkers.
"The only comment I got about it was the other day from a guy I worked with about a year ago. I just ran into him in the hardware store, and he said, 'What have you been up to, other than letting your hair grow?'''
- MADELYN ROSENBERG
MUSICIANS ARE SORT OF 'OUT THERE'
In 20 years, WILLIAM PENN has never had a comment about his ponytail.
``I guess because I'm a musician, we can be sort of out there,'' he said.
Penn is a well-known piano player in the region whose upscale jazz group, the William Penn Trio, regularly plays the Homestead and Greenbrier resorts. He also works for Total Action Against Poverty as the music coordinator of the Henry Street Music Center & Jazz Institute in Roanoke.
He doesn't give his hair much thought. Nor does he think it has ever been a handicap.
``To tell you the truth, I really never even pay much attention to it. It's just part of me. I guess if you can't accept my hair, then you can't accept me,'' he said.
- MARK MORRISON
IT'S AN ART THING
T. TRUMAN CAPONE, 46, has worn his dark brown, shoulder-length hair in a ponytail since 1981 for practical and style purposes. The Blacksburg jeweler teaches Aikido and participates in other sports, which he said leaves him with two choices: a crew cut or pulling his hair back.
"Really it's for very functional reasons," Capone said.
But he also wears his hair in a ponytail because it fits his lifestyle, personality and career path in the arts. Capone, who owns a jewelry store in Blacksburg, is a graphic designer at Virginia Tech and has taught design classes at Tech and Radford University.
Having a ponytail has never adversely affected his career, he said, and in some cases has helped him gain a better rapport with his students, who view him as more approachable. The kids on his 13-year-old son's soccer team, which he coaches, think the ponytail is cool.
Not that image is why Capone wears a ponytail. While the style has become more acceptable over the years - especially with Hollywood stars such as Steven Segal and Don Johnson in his Miami Vice days donning them - Capone is quick to point out his hair was long before it became chic.
To him, the ponytail is more about "what makes you feel good about yourself."
Considering today's styles, which include body piercing, tattoos and dyed orange hair, ponytails are pretty mild. In earlier times, men with long hair represented strength, power and machismo, he added.
Once administrators begin wearing ponytails, the style will become more mainstream.
- ELISSA MILENKY
LENGTH: Long : 214 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. PHILIP HOLMAN\Staff. Eric Spencer. 2. ALANby CNBSPEARMAN\Staff. Jim Bohrling. 3. ALAN SPEARMAN\Staff. Eddie Thomas.
color. 4. File photo. William Penn.