The 23rd Chromosome

It came as no surprise to me when I Googled the question, “Which side of the family does the color blindness gene pass,” that the answer was, “The back side.”

First, before I start my rant, I want to say that many great genes have been passed down by my parents. Musical and artistic talent, intellect, and body type are just a few of the attributes mom and dad gave us. It’s just that some of the genes which passed down are a tad on the negative side.

The color blindness gene is found on the 23rd Chromosome. The chromosome is made up of two parts – the X and the Y. For those of you who remember your high school Anatomy and Physiology class, if you have two X chromosomes, you will be a female. If you have an X and a Y, you will be a male. If you have an X, Y, L, and an O chromosome, you will be a 30-bar percussion instrument that is hit with mallets.

The color blindness gene only hangs out on the X chromosomes. Because females have two X chromosomes, they can carry the gene on one X and not the other and not be color blind themselves. They are called the “carriers.” If they have the gene on both of their X chromosomes, they will be colorblind.

If this female has a son, she will pass the color blindness gene onto his only X chromosome making him color blind.

“Dear mom, thanks a lot! You have given me Mild Protan: red/green colorblindness where the red cones in the eye detect too much green light and not enough red.”

So, let’s go back in time to the point where my parents suspected something might be awry.

It was during the summer vacations of my elementary school years. To earn money for school clothes, we piled on the berry bus and rode to the county to pick strawberries. The berry boss placed us on a row with an empty flat and gave us simple instructions as to what they were expecting.

I can remember being side by side with girls my age. They would fill their flat, take it to the berry boss and return with an empty. In the same distance on the row, I would only have one carton in my flat filled. I can remember being halfway down the row with the half-filled flat thinking, “hum, I must have got a bum row,” when I heard the field boss yell, “Hey kid, look at all these berries that you are missing!”

The unfortunate truth was that I couldn’t see the red strawberries buried in the green leaves of the plant. At the end of the season, when most of the girls had four to eight punch cards to turn in for pay, I had one. Sadly, my mom helped me finish that card.

Growing up, I have come to accept that the colors I see are different than the colors someone with perfect color vision sees. It is for this reason that my wife picks the dress shirts to go with my dress pants and I never comment on the color of anything she is wearing or the color we will paint the house. I have though become proficient at painting landscape portraits. It just requires that I put sufficient paint on the drawing to hide the numbers.

People who are not colorblind are so unaware of the problems colorblind people daily face. I curse the restaurants who serve evening meals in a dimly lit room and have black print on dark red menus paper. The lettering is impossible for a person with colorblindness to see, which is why I choose to carry my own flashlight when going out for fine dining.

And colorblindness wasn’t the only trait that was passed down to me from my mother.

In my late twenties that I realized my mom’s brothers and her father were all bald and the implications this might have for me also. Running to the bathroom mirror and searching frantically, I was horrified to see a round patch of missing hair on the back side of my head.

“Dear mom. Thank you very much for Male Pattern Baldness!”

It is a myth that MPB travels only through the mom’s genes because it can travel through either side. But seeing that my dad, his brother, and his father all had healthy heads of hair, I am putting the blame on mom again. I am just glad that I didn’t lose it in high school where looks matter. On the Norwood Scale there are seven stages of hair loss. This can also be considered the seven stages of grief for a man.

During the progression of hair loss, I went to the Thomson Institute in Seattle which I later renamed Quack and Baldy’s because of their snake-oil cures. I never spent money on Rogaine but did try another wives’-tail cure which once grew hair on someone’s bowling ball. Alas, there was no stopping it from leaving. The sad thing is that for many years I walked around as a type VII looking like Bozo the clown simply because I was too sentimental to cut it all off.

Then one night at an auction to raise money for the high school youth group, I was outbid in a dare to have the rest of my hair cut off. And since then, I have been a type VIII, which you can see is empty on the cart. This is because it is impossible to see my head without hair.

The upside is that I don’t have to pay $15.00 a month to sit in the barber’s chair so he can trim my fringe. I merely go to the bowling alley and stick my head in the ball buffer once a week.

I also don’t have to listen to him comment on the beautiful sunset and the colors of the flowers in his hanging baskets.

It is so much easier being bald and black and white.

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