On the third stop of our Southern tour, Greenville, South Carolina, I caught the eye of the young cavalier publisher. A North Carolina grad with slightly more hair than me, he had a penchant for promoting his managers and then assigning and deploying patronizing nicknames. Whenever I entered his orbit the next three years, he’d proclaim – “Herr Schroder!” – prompting his reports to grin on cue as he cleverly mocked my German last name and, it seemed, my departing hair.

When I walked through the advertising department of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the next morning, where I had recently been hired as Creative Director, I took notice of all the salespeople’s double-takes. I walked into the art department, greeted my design team and, as they began to look up and stare, I walked into my office.

Joey, a talented artist who was gay, knocked on my door. “You got quite a haircut!” he said, smiling. I grimaced and shrugged my shoulders. “I figured it was time to stop hiding it,” I said. “I like bald guys,” he said. “It’s a good look. But you’re lucky.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Not all men have good-looking bald heads,” he said. “You have a very nice one.” I blushed.

For decades, I missed having my hair. Though no one other than my mother ever asked me about it, I sensed a chronic difference separating me from other men as if I were missing an ear or a finger. I thought being bald was the first element people noticed about me and it was the primary one they filed away in their memory to help recognize me.