Hail to the Coif:

Better than the mediocre hair, to the mind of the Manolo, are the example of those politicians, like the Ike and the Gerry Ford, who gracefully went bald without resorting to the dreadful combovers, or the hair plugs, or the ridiculous and expensive custom “hair systems”.   This willingness to stoically face the follicular misfortune is the testament to their personal rectitude and the strength of their characters.

President Van Buren during sparse times.

Unfortunately, not every President has had even the mediocre hair, much less gone bald in good humor. Indeed, the John Adams and the Martin Van Buren suffered terribly from the disastrous combination of the male pattern baldishness and the romanticized hair fashions of the early nineteenth century, resulting in the long fringe of the wild hair similar to that of the immortal Larry of the Three Stooges.

A Man and His Mullet: President Polk

Equally dreadful, are the lamentable hair-dos of the fleshy Andrew Johnson, who sported something akin to the pageboy, and that of the James K. Polk, the little-known president who invented the mullet.

The important southern hair.

Of the course, there are those presidents who have had the good hair, such as the Bill Clinton, who has the stately head of impressive hair, of the type that the Manolo refers to as the “Important Southern Hair”.

This Important Southern Hair, it is the carefully coiffed hair helmet worn by the vain and powerful men of the South, such as the president Jimmy Carter, the senator Trent Lott, and the football coach, Jimmy Johnson.

The Manolo has often wondered, is it the egg or the chicken: do the important men of the South obtain the important hair only after they become prominent, or does the important hair precede and perhaps aid in the rise to power? Only God and the Mr. Christophe know the answer to this.

Standing above the proud owners of the Important Southern Hair, are the proud owners of the Important Irishy Hair, chiefly John the Fitzgerald Kennedy, and the Ronald Reagan, both of whom had the magnificent Celtic mops of the movie idol hair, hair that inspired confidence and projected youthfulness, thick luxuriant hair that drove the womens mad with the desire to run their fingers through it. (The Manolo suspects that the beautiful and manly mustache of the Teddy Roosevelt inspired the somewhat similar emotions.)

Yet in the rankings of the Presidential do’s there are still the two chief executives who stand head above the Kennedy and the Reagan and the Clinton and the Carter, and both of these were the red heads.

President Jefferson. First citizen and second coif.

Thus, the second best head of the Presidential hair belonged to the third president, Thomas Jefferson.

So magnificent and thick was this hair that Jefferson could dispense with the powdered wigs of the Old World and openly taunt the balding kings and impotent potentates of Europe with his democratic head of free and mighty all-American hair.

But this beautiful hair it is nothing when compared to the most supremely majestic hair ever to grace the head of any American president, indeed, perhaps the most majestic hair ever to grace any head, anywhere.

The Manolo now commands you to reach into your wallet and retrieve from it the twenty-dollar bill so that you may marvel at the hair of the Andrew Jackson.

President Jackson. A Twenty Dollar Hair Style.

Such hair can only be the gift of the most benevolent Deity; beautiful, thick, wild, romantic hair, as untamed as the oceans, as alive as the amber waves of grain.

This is heroic hair.

Indeed, it is the little known historic fact that it was the hair and not the General Jackson who led the charge at the Battle of New Orleans. That morning, the Andrew Jackson was sick in his tent with the fever, when his impetuous hair, fearing disaster, seized the initiative, mounted the General’s horse and rode into battle, waving its little sword and shouting exhortations to the men.

Jackson, when he had heard what his hair had done, struggled to his feets grabbed the spare mount and raced toward the lines, arriving just in time to see the redcoats being chased bodily by his magnificent hair into the brambles and the bushes where the rabbits couldn’t go.

“Huzzah!” shouted the American troops, “Huzzah for Old Hickory’s Hair!”

The Manolo can assure you that no one ever cheered like this for King George III’s peruke.