Two years ago Jonathan, age 14, began letting his hair grow. And grow it did, much like kudzu on the Southern landscape.

It soon cascaded over his ears, down the back of his neck, over his shoulder blades. What a precocious head of hair it was, especially for someone who hadn’t come of age in the 1960s.

For school and church, Jonathan wore his hair in a long ponytail. When rocking out in the garage on his bass, he’d let it go wild, achieving a furious frenzy.

Cautious onlookers would recoil. A snap from Jonathan’s locks might take the nose off your face.

A video from last month’s Relay for Life fundraiser at Napa Valley College shows four guys in a youth band having a jolly good time, yet the faces of only three musicians are visible.

The face of the fourth is hidden by a swirling mane. This guitarist appears to be half horse’s tail. That’s Jonathan.

Watching the video, his mother registered dismay. Where is my son? Where is my Jonathan?

Jonathan was proud of himself. Countless rock legends had hair like this, he said. When one plays metal, one has to look the part.

I basically withheld commentary. On one hand, it was gutsy of Jonathan to buck prevailing hair styles among high schoolers. I never would have. I was a timid adolescent.

On the other hand, I couldn’t honestly say that he had picked the most becoming hair style. I found it disconcerting that my stepson was the spitting image of Jesus Christ as commonly depicted in Christian literature.

Long hair made Jonathan seem wise beyond his years. Then he grew a beard. He seemed wiser yet.

I know. A beard on a 10th grader? What’s that all about? Does Napa High even allow such things? Why, in my day ...

Still, one had to give Jonathan yet more points for individualism. And besides, rarely does a teenager’s hair style last forever. Like clothing fashion, this too would likely pass.

But what next? Dreadlocks?

Jonathan, the bearded hippie, used his throwback look to maximum effect at a barn dance last month where young and old were jumping to a techno beat.

While Cheryl and I were doing our lame version of techno dancing, we spied Jonathan across the dance floor partnered with a stunningly mature female wearing what I took to be a red dress.

Apparently Jonathan, in a moment of supreme self-confidence bolstered by his great head of hair, had asked the woman to dance. She had accepted.

Cheryl and I exhausted ourselves, while Jonathan and the woman in red danced on and on. Cheryl could not believe her eyes. Neither could I.

After angling for a closer look, Cheryl reported that this female appeared disconcertingly mature. Her dance moves were not those of another teenager.

Jonathan’s hair, it turned out, had confused the woman. She was 26. Only when Jonathan confessed to be 16 did she realize she was robbing the cradle.

This confusion on the dance floor has been subsequently memorialized  in a song by Jonathan whose lyrics repeat the phrase, “She was 26 and I was 16.”

Summer is ticking down. School is about to resume. And Jonathan has gone into mourning for the vacation that went all too fast.

He began talking of getting a haircut and shaving his beard. It might be good to start his junior year with a fresh new look, he said.

I kept mum. Whatever, Jonathan.

His mother was nothing but encouraging. Sensing an opportunity, she made a hair appointment for him.

I was having lunch at home last week when a young man, barely recognizable, entered the room holding a foot-long tail of human hair. The beard, gone. The locks, shorn.

The old Jonathan was obliterated. I hardly recognized the chin, the mouth, the smile on the dazzling new Jonathan.

I asked if he was going to keep his ponytail as a memento. Something to tickle his children with someday.

Nope, he said. He’s going to donate it to a group that makes hair pieces for cancer patients.

Locks of Love.

Kevin can be reached at 256-2217 or Napa Valley Register,  P.O. Box 150, Napa 94559 or kcourtney@napanews.com