Behind the Scenes

I took a few minutes to write about the marketing behing Buy Baldy.

Take a minute and check it out!

Jason is a Baldy too!

Cami's cousin, Mandy married Jason, who now has joined the Baldy ranks! Thanks Jason!!! I took their photos from their blog (tay-tay-young.blogspot.com) along with the following description from Mandy:

Cami amazes me with how brave she's been through this whole thing. I'm so proud!!

Well this morning he woke up at 6:45 and said "Today is the Day"!! I was still kinda out of it, so I had no idea what he was talking about. All the sudden I hear the clippers going in the bathroom. I ran in to take some pictures and see if he was really going to do it. So I don't have a before shot, but there are some "in progress" and after shots for all to enjoy. I guess he's gotten some comments at school regarding his new haircut. He said people start out giving him a hard time but once he explained why he did it and that it's not just a haircut gone wrong, people feel kinda bad. So he's having a good time letting people feel bad for teasing him :)

And So It Ends

It's the 13th - the last official day of Buy A Baldy.

Thank you for all who participated. Our donations have far exceeded our original goal of only $500.

Thanks to those who donated money and also to those who donated their hair.

Donations will continue to be accepted for all you late comers!

Thanks again!!

And the First Shall be Last

Looks like Dennis finished the job (in more ways than one) and thus ends the hair of all the original Baldies.

Here's what Joan has to say about it:

After Dennis saw Riley's pictures, and being asked by people when they were going to get to see him bald, he came home last night begging to be shaved! Carli took most of the photos--you'll notice that his "before" pictures are the same as everybody else's "grandpa" photos, but since he's the grandpa that's the way it should be, right? I did most of the buzzing, Craig did some, and then Dennis did most of the shaving. I finished up the shaving in the back and since everyone else has already been through it, I was able to be bold, too, and do it with a smile on my face. It's that first close cut with the clippers
that's the hardest since it goes against everything you've ever done before!

After that it was easy and even kind of fun. Knowing we were following so many good examples and that it was for a good cause helps, too. I am still wondering if an of you are going to continue wearing this close-cut hairdo just because it's easy and breezy!

Craig came in and posed a few times with his dad for father/son pictures. Craig's is growing out so much already, though, that he looks positively hairy next to his dad. It's only been a week since Craig went boldly bald, so that should be comforting to those of you who are worried about it growing back!

Baldies Galore

Riley took the plunge today. The Brinkerhoffs were in town this weekend to see Jack and they asked him when he was going bald. So he told his sister Chelsey that she could shave him right then if she wanted. So of course everyone jumped all over that and we had an impromptu shaving session! And let me tell you--it grew into more than just Riley. His brother Garrett decided he wanted to get it in on things too. So Riley shaved Garrett and by the time he was done Riley's nephew Brayden decided that he was ready to do it too!

When Brayden was done we talked ourselves into putting Isaac in the shaving chair next. Riley did the deed and Isaac was sort of freaked out by it at first. I put him and finally Riley's Dad joined the group at the very end. It was such a nice gesture from everyone (well Isaac didn't really have much say I guess:) and turned something that I was kind of scared to do into quite the party!




While the boys were being shaved Sherrie shared a few things with us about her Mom and aunt who both had breast cancer. She told us that she and Chelsey participated in the Relay for Life this past year. I just think it's interesting that once your life has been touched by cancer--wether it's you or someone you love--your take on efforts to help fight it suddenly changes.

So thanks to the Brinkerhoff men for being so spontaneously brave and making such a party out of it.

Brian's Behairing

Cori reports:
There were some interesting differences between shaving Camdon and shaving Brian. The most noticeable was how easy it was to use the razor on Brian's head. On Camdon's head we really had to apply pressure and Brian wound up doing it because it was kind of bothering me. But Brian's scalp is nice and slick, or maybe it's just that there was less hair to shave...:)

Brian was a great sport. We'd talked about just buzzing it since he has a course to teach next week, but Hannah wouldn't hear of it. She was ready for the razor! We did the whole package and I think he looks great. It was very nice to wake up next to a bold baldy this morning.

Brian's only commentary:
1. Shaving a permanently affixed toupee is trickier than one might think, especially when you get down to the webbing...(it was time for a new me anyway).
2. Sporting the Dallin H. Oaks look is just that, a look, I don't feel any smarter.
3. It would not be prudent to have a family reunion anytime soon for fear of being misidentified as an extremist group.
4. We guys just lost it on top, which is enough from a man's perspective. From a woman's perspective, Cami has is it great with the hair thing...no more shaving legs or armpits ehhh?

Bonus Baldy

On Saturday Doug took the plunge. He's just been waiting for me to come around I think! I really didn't want him to at first because I didn't want ALL the adults in my house to be scary and ugly! However, when I saw how good the other men were turning out, I decided it was OK. Not so scary and ugly! It was hard making the first cut with the clippers. He'd let his hair get so long though, it HAD to come off one way or another! We video taped it and took pictures. Cora wasn't a big fan of the look, but she came around pretty soon. Holley, on the other hand, freaked out! She cried and ran away and wouldn't go anywhere near Doug. Finally, that night she peek into the kitchen at him and said, "Baldy." Doug told her he looked so nice and she kept telling him, "Ewww, nooooo!" But she laughed as she said it and has been fine ever since.

I also have to tell a funny thing. Holley saw a bald guy out the window the other day and she said, "Mama!"

Everyone at church was way impressed that Doug would go bald for me. He even had volunteers in the Elders Quorum who wanted to shave their heads too. One of them even suggested that he get in on the website action. We'll see if any of it happens, but it's a
nice thing to know that people here care too! One of my friends here used to be pretty wild and shaved her head before she had kids. She keeps threatening that she's going to do it again, but I keep telling her not to! I can accept brave men doing it, but I just don't think that women should ever be bald! Her husband is one of the ones who kept saying that he was coming to church on Sunday shaved so I may not be able to stop her from doing it!

It's been really interesting to have another baldy right here in our house. Nothing has made me feel braver than having someone else that I'm around all the time, know what it feels like to have no hair. Of course, his is already growing back, but it just really helps to have him here in the house with me, being bald all the time. I asked him to keep it bald until I start to grow my hair back. He was all for it! He told me yesterday that he's started to think of my baldness as just being a drastic, cutting edge kind of haircut. He said that he's going to be kind of sad when I start to grow it back. How nice is he?

Has anyone else discovered that they don't have a lot of feeling in their scalps? I thought it was just me, but Doug says that he doesn't feel very much on his head either. So I was just wondering if anyone else was discovering weird things about being bald. Looks like Doug has joined the ranks of the other Baldies!

--------------------
Andrew sez:
Personally I think this first one Doug looks like Jack Nicholson. :)

A Bold Baldy

So last night was Camdon's big night. We invited a couple of families over and had some baldy treats then shaved his head. Several of the kids wanted to help so we took a page from Chris' book and let everyone who wanted a swipe take one. Then I finished it up. Camdon did a huge part by himself so that was kind of fun. He really wanted to try out the grandpa look so I've included a picture of that too.



In his own words:

Hi, guys! To Cami, Chris and Craig, I think you baldies know how I'm feeling right now! I would say that the baldies are really boldies! Ha ha ha. This morning I woke up, and my head stuck to my pillow (I had some Nelsborn on because of the razor and Dad's hard razoring)! I was mowing the lawn and the wind kept hitting my awesome bald head! See you baldies/boldies later.

Love,
Camdon the boldy/baldy




Well, it looks like we only have a few more heads to shave. Looking forward to accounts from Dennis, Brian and Riley. Looking forward to some more bold baldy shots, guys.

Brig the Baldy

Chris reports that after he shaved Brig's head, he was all excited that people would see him and think that Chris had shrunk or see Brig and think that he had gotten older "like a teenager."

Congratulations, Brig the Baldy!

Public Baldy - Chris gets Butchered

Well, today was the big day. They absolutely butchered my head, so after all was said and done, we finished shaving it the rest of the way.



This picture is the first teacher who won the drawing.

It was kind of funny because all the kids were all excited to shave my head. We drew three names and the first name was our business ed teacher, the second name was our head football coach, and the final name was one of our p.e. teachers.




I thought we'd have a riot on our hands since no kids got their names drawn, but the business ed teacher took a swipe or two and then called a kid down out of the bleachers to finish his turn. Then our football coach kept calling kids down out of the stands. We ended up with all of next year's seniors who were in the gym coming down and taking their swipes. We even
had one girl take a crack at it.




Then we had the girls' softball coach (who also shaves his head) come down and work on it for a while and a couple of other teachers jumped at the chance to do some shaving.

Craig Takes the Plunge

Thought you'd all like to see these! Or not! Craig's enthusiasm to follow Andrew's example was kind of contagious, but I was extremely glad his friend Christina was here to do the actual dirty deed! I decided at first not to watch, so Dennis was in charge of the first pictures. I was chatting with Crystal online when all of a sudden I heard hysterical laughter from the
back porch, were the initial buzzing was taking place. Laughter is good, I thought, so I went out to check and Christina and Dennis were in tears from laughing so hard while Craig was also laughing in spite of being freaked out by something. Turns out when Christina was looking at his head with the clippers still on there was this quick little "bzzzt" sound which came from her inadvertently getting too close to Craig's left eyebrow! There's a little teeny piece of his eyebrow missing, but it really wasn't that noticable. It looks like a little bitty scar from a manly adventure. Which, I guess in a way, it was!



Anyway, the deed is done and he was sort of enjoying it last night. The amazing thing is how much he looks like Cami. We all had to get on the blog after it was done and compare him to her picture! She's prettier, of course, but it is amazing how much they look alike. I don't think I'd realized that before! So, enjoy and work up your courage for when it's your turn. It's not that bad, we discovered!


Mom/Joan