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One more law won't make a difference
To the editor: I'll admit it, I looked like a goddamn hippie freak. It was 1986, and my last haircut had been for high school graduation in 1973. I had moved up to Laramie from Tucson in 1984 to trade 9-month summers for 9-month winters (old Wyoming jokes: "I hear summer will fall on a weekend this year!" "The snow doesn't melt; it just blows around until it wears out!"). I didn't expect much culture in a state with a human population smaller than metro Tucson and 3 cattle for every man, woman, and child, but I did expect some civilization. Now, I'd been known to stop in at the Green Valley Circle K on the way back from Madeira Canyon, so I was used to folks offering to cut my hair for free. But in Laramie, they weren't joking, and they had sheep shears ready to back them up. I had fooled them occasionally with the old "stuff it up inside a cowboy hat" trick, but who wants to wear one of those forever? So I went home and had my wife cut the shit off and forgot about it. Now I'm finding out what a close brush with death that had been. Missed me by a hair! The point, if there is one, is that the actions of those Wyoming cowboys were illegal then, and they were illegal last weekend. And that don't mean shit. One more law won't stop an asshole who's already broken a bunch. At least I was "lucky" enough to be hated for a characteristic that I could change overnight.
Mark Tibbitts |
