Why Are Bald Men So Smart?

Our insurance man’s name was Moe. He would come around the house every month to get some money, and have some coffee and my Mom’s blueberry pie. He was always nice to me and always brought me a treat. Usually it was a big black sucker. They were my favourite. I only told him that once and he never forgot. Moe was a big fat man with no hair. He’d pick me up and sit me on his knee, and he was always happy to see me.
I was sitting on his lap one time enjoying my sucker and watching him talk to my mom. I reached up to his bald head and rubbed it back and forth with my tiny hand. It was smoother than my dolls heads, and shinier.

He smiled while I studied him. I finally asked, “How come you don’t have any hair?”

My mother was so embarrassed she was totally without words; then suddenly she started to chastise me and apologise to Moe all at once. Moe was saying; “No, no Peggy, it’s alright, she needs to know.”……. Wow. I was going to find out something that was a secret. Normally when I asked a question that got that kind of response from my mom, the answer was:”….to make little girls ask questions.” That made me mad.

He went on to explain that a brain can only hold so much information. When you grow up and get as smart as he is, your brain gets so big and full that there just isn’t any room for the roots. I was hanging off every word. “So the hair falls out. He continued. The little bits that remain along the sides aren’t affected. That’s not where your brains are.”

I guess I ripped the heads off all my dolls for the next month. I was trying to find their brains. I remember throwing one of them across the room in frustration. NONE OF THEM had brains! Then I’d cry because I couldn’t put their heads back on and had no one to play tea party with. Every body was getting tired of replacing the heads on my dolls. And they were getting tired of me jumping up and down after sneaking…. another head…. off another doll…. and finding nothing. I spent allot of time teaching them things and they never grew any brains.

It must have been around Christmas time. I had gotten a Shirley Temple Walking Doll from Santa. She was the same size as me and my uncles and every body told me she was really smart because she could walk if I held her hands. I didn’t like her much because her skin was hard and I couldn’t bend her or get her to sit properly for tea; I couldn’t feed her a bottle or put her in the carriage and she was too hard to dress and undress.

She really couldn’t walk. They said I had to teach her, but she was stupid. Besides, she had too much hair. I was trying to teach her to walk again one day and couldn’t resist. I ripped her head off. There! See? No brains!! I was kicking her around the floor and screaming. Dad said we couldn’t fix it. He wanted to throw it out, but mom saved it to give to Moe… Maybe she was going to let him teacher her something.
In the spring when I saw Moe again, Dad was with us at the table having his favourite lemon meringue pie. I asked Moe if he would marry me when I grew up. He looked across at my father and said, with a nervous chuckle: “Most little girls want to marry their Daddy when they grow up. Don’t you want to marry your Daddy?”

I said no. That hurt Dad’s feelings so he went back to work in the yard. Moe gave me a big warm hug, said a few words to my mom and said he’d see us next month. I saw him talking a bit to Dad in the yard before he left.

Mom actually sat at the table beside me and looked directly into my face when she said “Tell me Margie; why would you choose Moe to marry, over your Dad?” I could tell she really was interested so I explained to her in detail that I thought Moe was always happy. He laughed all the time and you could tell it was real because his whole body jiggled just like Santa Claus.

He gave big hugs. He never said anything bad to anybody and he didn’t use curse words like Dad, ever. He paid attention to what I was doing and liked my artwork. He always asked to see more and wanted to know the whole story about my pictures. He had a soft voice and big kind eyes. I liked the way he talked to her and I liked it when he made her laugh.

Mom said “You make good sense.” She said. Then quietly, almost whispering she said “Moe does make me laugh.” As she rose from the chair she looked out the window saying, “I hope you remember that these things are important when you get older.”

I went back to my painting. “Besides,” I said to Mom, “He’s the smartest man I know!” Mom laughed.