Last-gasp reach for eternal youth
* JACK METTA reflects on a human obsession, spurred by simple words from his niece. *

MY niece, through her dad, asked if I could run a birthday greeting for her in this newspaper.
“Sure, I can arrange that,” I replied, adding: “I think I have a picture of her somewhere that I could use. I’ve used it before.”
A day later, my niece phoned back. She was going to send me another photograph. The one I had on file was in her words, “outdated”.
“How so?” I asked. “You still look the same, don’t you?”
“Uncle, they’ll call me baby face if they see that picture in the newspaper,” she replied.
“Who’s going to call you baby face?” I asked in jest, knowing what her response would be.
“My friends … and … uhm …my schoolmates and ... uhm .. uhm … my friends at church … and … and ... uhm ... ” she tapered off.
“Okay,” I’ll wait for your picture,” I said.
The picture arrived five days later in the mail … well after her birthday.
She was as pretty as ever, her babyish smile as bright as the day she was born, nearly a decade ago.
It had been five years since I last saw her, but as the saying goes in most situations like this, she hadn’t changed much; a bit taller perhaps but that would be about all.
Then her words began ringing in my ears ... she didn’t want to be called ‘baby face’.
Wow, millions of people around the world would beg to differ. They’d like their baby faces to be remembered forever.
Here was a 10-year-old who had reminded me of something that has and continue to trouble millions around the world – ageing.
Her remarks were the complete opposite of the very obsession of millions of others who try their utmost best to hold onto the looks of yesteryears that they’d like others to remember them by.
Her words had the affect of reversing a universal trend.
And that thought conjured up memories of years gone by … the lush playing fields of Bugandi High School, Lae, Morobe province in the early 1960s.
This was the placed to go on Saturdays for schoolboys.
When I think about today’s schoolboys converging on the shopping centres and markets in both the rural and urban centres on Saturdays, I fail to grasp what other purposes they go to town for other than to shop.
Schoolboys would come from far and wide and play rugby league from sun-up till sun-down.
The alluring thing about the games was that you were able to ‘pick on your own size’.
Games were arranged in weight divisions so if you were older but smaller in stature, you get to play with those younger than you but of the same weight. In this way, nobody could tell you at point blank to “pick you own size” because you were in that category anyway.
It was in later years when the schoolboys evolved into the age divisions that my niece’s words would have rang louder, and, I believe still rings true today, though my argument would be shallow as today’s children of all ages, particularly those in the urban and semi-urban centres would have proof of age through birth records.
Many in our Under 18 rugby league competition in the early 1970s lived in a dream world where they never aged.
A father would turn up to take his son’s place or a couple of uncles on the sideline selling betelnut would don jumpers and get on the field, if the team or club did not have the numbers.
We were surprised on occasionally when we were flattened by some rampaging busy-bearded second rower or chasing down a balding centre down the sidelines. When we failed on most occasions, we’d stand akimbo behind our own tryline and wonder how these grown men had turned back the clock to be under 18 years old and there we were trying to grow as fast as we could so that we could drink the amber fluid to our hearts’ content.
When we progressed onto the bigger playing fields, we had pride in looking handsome on the field. That meant ‘pass the comb, Kombo’ as it made the rounds in the dressing room for each and everyone who wanted it to spruce up the Afro and pat down the wayward tuft of hair. Those who had beards ensured if was nicely fluffed up before our grand entry.
“Win the game and win their hearts of the crowd,” was the name of the game as the coach would drum into our heads as we sat huddled together in the dressing room.
Looks were important then. The single players fussed over their appearances not only to win the crowd’s hearts, but also of those avid female fans in the stands.
And the sprucing up send the message also that the player on the field was a young and eligible bachelor who would happily discard that tag if given the chance.
Today, there was so many bald heads on the playing field, you wonder if he is young, eligible, a father, a granddad and some teenager who had gone bald on heredity grounds, meaning his father is bald and so the son follows suit. That chain of thought followed you through the league’s progress until the bald look came into fashion.
You thought at first the player might have one hell of a problem with dandruff; later you changed that opinion to ‘maybe he reckons hair is an impediment to speed’.
Then you saw them playing rugby league on TV and realised it was a craze and that every second person who played the code spotted a bald head.
Now you couldn’t tell for sure if he is balding or bald because there is no evidence on his head. It’s like ‘hair today and gone tomorrow’; no trace to signify the cause – heredity or deliberately self-inflicted.
But one thing is gauged from the trend. It’s the young look. Players are young and balding do not want to make it obvious. Those who are ageing and balding, have a like mind. So, they resort to the trendy ‘hair today, gone tomorrow’ trick and what you see on the playing paddock is a bunch of clean shave heads bobbing hither and thither, lending credence to the joke making the rounds at the local barber shop: “God made only a few perfect heads, on others, he put hair.”
Hair is to humans what plumes are to birds, my father once told me. And after many years, as I stood in front of the mirror, his words began to gather meaning.
Today, I am not surprised to see hair dye vendors making a roaring trade and barbers getting an influx of teenagers and adult men fast-tracking the balding process.
You see ID cards today carrying photos of the carriers taken 10-20 years ago on them.
Senior public servants and captains of industry still insist the media use their photos on file, which date back many years.
It’s like a last gasp reaching out of the hand to hold fast onto that youthfulness that was fast fading with time, but which they do not want to disappear forever.
So, Zaring, being called a baby face is a compliment, something you may not be able to realise at your young age, but you will certainly come across it in another phase of your life in later years.
Happy belated 10th birthday and God bless you always.
Don’t forget the Wise Counsellor’s words: “Anyone who keeps learning, stays young…”
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