"The smarties had to be getting outside help!" *: Western Mass Hair-Wear

The Pioneer Valley is lovely. The hair styles at the strip malls as - the horror! - WalMart, are not. The Mullet has gone the way of the mastodon, but the Mohawk is mighty in its resurgence out here, apparently. I cannot account for this.

The Pioneer Valley (nice pics here) is a place with lots of green, lots of old homes, lots of cows, lots of farms, and now, in Chicoppee, lots of Mohwaks. Why? Are the 5-Colleges to blame? Probably not, if my eyes are faithful (and keep in mind that I was on my way to and at the WalMart in Chicoppee when the Mohawk mania was on display).

Find me a man or woman at Amherst College with a mohawk, and I'll call it an anomoly. How about Smith & Mt Holyoke? To be truthfull, I avoid the radical eclectic mismash that is the Smith College campus, so I can only speak for Mt Holyoke College, where I love. I have seen one Mohawk in three semesters. It's a small campus (2100 women) and sooner or later, if there was more than one, I would have seen it. And what of Hampshire College. If they have Mohawks en masse there, I don't see them because all the quasi-freegan hipster types are still wearing the hockey-helmet or Dave Grohl look. That leaves the 22,000 student-filled UMass Amherst. Not one noted in two semesters.

So it's not the colleges. Is it the farmers? Hardley. Hair style on an organic farm is hardly a priority, especially when hair putty that provides staying power for the Mohawk is probably ecologically toxic (and if it wasn't it would be outrageously expensive, and even if it could be afforded, farming and haute coiffure don't seem to be synergistic). Further, the hair dryer needed to achieve the lift of the Mohawk is a waste of electricity. New England Farmers may be a lot of things, but electricity slanderers is not one of them.

Okay - the military personnel in the area. Nice try, but no. There is a difference between the military-regulated flat top with tight sides and the vertical vavoom that is a Mohawk.

It must be the every-day, blue-collarish work-a-day types...at Walmart for some reason. Three: count them, THREE in the 1 hour I was there getting my eyes checked and fit for glasses (because I'm a broke student with no principles) . On my way to the WalMart, I based by two motorcyclists who had blue and green Mohawks on their helmets.