Charity

I have a love-hate relationship with my hair. It grows quickly, which is both a blessing and a curse (my one experiment with a fringe was extremely frustrating as I had to trim it weekly to keep it out of my eyes). I’m never sure what colour my hair is – it’s either light brown or dark blonde depending on the lighting and the season. In the summer, I get gorgeous natural highlights. I’ve dyed my hair twice – not permanently, and not recently. Again, the quick rate at which my hair grows would mean that I’d be forever touching up roots and that isn’t something I want to spend time and money on. My hair is what my former stylist (he retired from the haircut business to teach others how to work magic on hair at the high school trade level) calls “poker straight”. I will never need a straightener. It is also incredibly soft. So soft that clips and pony tail holders often slide out. I’ve had some success with curling irons but it usually involves mousse in damp hair and half a container of hairspray to get a couple hours of moderate curl. My hair is fine – when it is short (at my ears or even at my chin) it seems even finer. So for the last decade or so I’ve kept it shoulder length or longer. Every couple of years I donate my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. The minimum donation length is 8″ but I’ve donated 15″ twice (I still had “medium-long” hair afterwards too). I’m at the point where my hair hits the small of my back so I need to do something about it. This is where the trouble starts.

I’m not a fashionista. I don’t like looking through beauty magazines because doing so often brings up all sorts of body image issues. I don’t know what type of hairstyle would look good on me and though I want a change, I don’t want a drastic one. My best friend has been hounding me for years to get a short haircut. I don’t think that going from below the bra line hair to a short cut would be too drastic for me. I also have a practical need for slightly longer hair – I work with kids who have special needs and being able to pull my hair back so that it can’t be pulled is really useful. I don’t want to have to pull it back all the time and right now it is so long that having it tied back is the only practical option, whether it is in an updo or a braid. I’d love to have hair that didn’t need to be tied back or done up all the time but I’m not sure what that would look like. The other problem is that since my stylist retired, I’ve been bouncing around and haven’t yet found anyone I trust completely. I have had some really bad haircuts in my past when hairdressers didn’t listen to me or when their idea of a trim ended up being 4″ shorter than my idea of a trim. I’m not the kind of girl who washes her hair daily (it’s too soft as it is, and washing it daily makes it even softer and completely unmanageable). I own a blow dryer but have used it mostly to make melted crayon art. I don’t want to buy (or use) a ton of hair products, and I really don’t have time in the morning to spend more than 10 minutes on my hair trying to make it look “right”. I need a style that is pretty much wash and wear.

The final issue is that the last time I donated my hair, it didn’t go as planned. I raised money to support breast cancer research, and donated my hair at a Toronto Argos game. It was my 4th donation so I knew what to expect – two elastics, hair cut in between them. Except the volunteer hair stylist (a friend of a friend) didn’t follow the program and cut 2″ above the top elastic. This made my hair seriously uneven and when it was evened up, it was too short to pull back. I cried for days. It grew back, as it always does, but I don’t want to have that happen again. Given that horrible experience, you may ask why I want to donate my hair again. The answer is simple: it’s something I can do to help others. After the last debacle, while I was feeling sorry for myself after the game, someone approached me to thank me. He told me that a close friend had received a wig through the Pantene Beautiful Lengths campaign and that it had given her a much needed boost in morale at a very difficult time in life. I have never forgotten his words that night or the picture he brought to show me at the next home game of his friend. I feel that donating my hair is something I should do because I can and because it is a small gesture that can help a woman going through hell. So I’m announcing it here – I’m going to donate my hair in the near future.

Now all I need is to figure out what to do with it after my donation. I’m including a pic of what my hair looked like 6 months after my last donation it grew out quickly – it took a lot of fussing with the curling iron to get it to flip and there is a section at the back that flipped the other way so I don’t really want to do this again. Besides it’s not really a style it’s just shorter hair that still doesn’t do anything. My hair looks like that now except it’s a good foot longer.

I am a football fan. I like pretty much any football – Canadian, American, college, junior, heck even midget and pee-wee. I love the strategy and tactics of the game. Football is a giant chess match played with rather large pieces and at a full contact pace. To anyone who says that football players aren’t intelligent, I dare you to read and understand a playbook. Even once you know the playbook you have to constantly adapt and make split-second decisions. Football is truly an intellectual sport. I love the challenge of sitting in the stands or standing on the sidelines and predicting (with decent accuracy too) what play is going to come next or what the defensive response is going to be.

But there’s another reason I love the CFL. The players. You’d be hard pressed to find another group of professional athletes as devoted to their communities as the CFL players are. Players on any given team make hundreds (yes hundreds) of community appearances each year. Most of these are done quietly and with very little fanfare. For example, Taylor Robertson of the Toronto Argonauts set up his own foundation last year – the Life on the Line foundation – dedicated to raising money for Breast Cancer research. Taylor makes dozens of appearances for his charity over and above what he already does as a member of the Argonauts. These are on his down time. After a long day of practicing or on a rare day off, he chooses to go out and make a difference. It’s not an Argo thing either – I can cite examples on every single CFL team of a player who goes above and beyond.

Like Marwan Hage of the Hamilton Tiger Cats. (Why does it seem like the biggest guys on the team are the softest touches?) Not satisfied with simply bringing a minor football team to every game to watch from the “Hage’s Heroes” seats (which in itself is pretty awesome), Hage also gets involved in the Hamilton food bank and with kids at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Let’s not forget the Ticats QB Kevin Glenn who, in partnership with local Tim Hortons owners in Hamilton is bringing 250 kids from the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation to the game on Saturday. Wow.

I’m not going to list every single CFL player who has a charitable organization – the list would be too long. But even if a player hasn’t founded or partnered with an organization, it doesn’t mean that they’re still not active in the community. I have been going to CFL games for 30 years now (yep since I was an infant!). I have yet to see a player refuse a fan an autograph. I have more often than not seen players who were hot and tired after a hard-fought game wanting nothing more than to jump in a hot tub or a cool shower stay and sign autographs for waiting fans. That, more than any other reason is why I love the CFL. This Is our league.

Hair today…

Why I love the CFL