I guess that's why they call it the blues

I have one thing to say about this trend of young people today dying their hair blue:

I don't care.

I see kids all the time, going around with multicolored melons, sometimes variegated like a parrot, sometimes all one color. There are as many shades of blue as there are teenagers.  With colors like Air Force blue, Azure, Baby blue, Blue-gray,  Carolina blue, Cerulean, Indigo, Iris, Navy blue, Periwinkle, Royal blue, Sapphire Sky blue and all the way on down to Viridian, there are plenty of choices for the modern person who wants their hair to be some color other than what genetics put there.

When I was a barefoot boy with cheek of tan, my hair was so blonde, it almost looked white. So I didn't have to resort to the custom of dark-haired guys of my day: they would empty the contents of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on the front of their hair to have their bangs all blond. Why they didn't just tint ALL their hair was never quite clear to me, although it did save a lot of guys from walking around looking like Guy Fieri, which would not have been a good thing even then.

But a little peroxide for guys and some frosting for girls and the occasional all-the-way to Clairol Light Golden Blonde or Pure Diamond for some girls, and that was the extent of hair chemistry in my day, and meanwhile I saw my own hair turn from that blonde to a ratty brown, and now nature has seen fit to continue using my head as a kaleidoscope, and it's gray.  Not that Mike Pence White, and not the George Clooney cool kind of gray. And not that salt-and-pepper look from the Grecian Formula ads, the ones that promise aging hipsters a chance to come back to work after vacation leaving coworkers stunned...STUNNED!...that anyone would think they wouldn't know the secret.

One of the immutable laws of nature is that no man can ever tell when a woman has dyed her hair, and no man can dye his hair at all without everyone from five-hour-old babies to soundly sleeping nonagenarians spotting it at fifty paces.  I mean, really.  Guys who dye their hair might as well wear a tiara with diamonds spelling out "DYE JOB", because it's that obvious.

But here's the point I was hoping to make.  A woman I know has a daughter in high school, a young lady of considerable accomplishment, with good grades, plenty of participation in the right activities, just one of those good kids that you know is headed for academic and personal success.  You know the kind of person I mean.  Not the sort that I, a total stranger to the honor roll review committee, was, but anyway...

Someone - some "adult" stranger - chose to cluck-cluck and shake her head and mumble some pejorative words when this sterling young woman took a notion to dye her hair blue before the start of the school year.

She did not get a swastika tattoo across her forehead. She did not get a pistol and rob a 7-11, or commit massive cheating on college boards, or steal a car and get all shahfahzed and run over a passel of orphans waiting for a ride to a fresh-air camp.  

She dyed her hair, which will grow out and flourish.

I hope we can say the same for the crabby, grumpy woman with enough time to criticize the free spirit of a fine young lady.