I’m not alone. I’ve found that many people react to redheads the same way. They assume we are all clowns. And who can blame them? Every redhead they have ever seen on TV or in the movies has been a comedian. Famous redheads don’t fall in love or save the day. They just waddle around in baggy pants and shove handfuls of chocolates into their mouths. As a result, real-life redheads of every demeanor and personality must strive to forge identities apart from Bozo and Lucy. Aren’t all redheads funny like Red Skelton… crazy like Carol Burnett… or outrageous like Charo? Obviously not, but it’s amazing how quickly a child called carrot-top learns to act silly.

I bristled every time someone called me Rusty or Red or Ronald McDonald, but I played the part well. I clowned for my elementary-school peers, then cursed my hair color at home. My parents told me I was lucky to have red hair. They said it was special. I didn’t see anything lucky or special about it. I hated it. The only thing that infuriated me more than the taunting I received was the pandering. Elderly relatives and passersby patted the top of my amber head and called me cute. They said I looked just like little Jody on TV’s ““Family Affair,’’ then they would chuckle to themselves. I didn’t want to be cute and funny like Jody. I wanted to be dashing and rugged like Johnny Quest.

My hair color continued to be a defining factor in my life as I grew from the cheerful Jody stage into the awkward Danny Partridge stage. ““Hey, Red, where’d ya get that hair?’’ I was asked 10,000 times. ““I’m Kris Kringle’s secret love child,’’ came my obnoxious teen reply. It was exactly the kind of response people wanted from me. They didn’t interpret it as biting or resentful. It was cute and funny.

I couldn’t make myself be taken seriously. My sophomore oration on apartheid in South Africa was deemed to be ““commendable’’ and ““well researched,’’ but my humorous reading of ““Yertle the Turtle’’ earned the highest marks. I tried out for the menacing part of Dracula in the school play (granted, I didn’t have the jet-black widow’s peak, but my skin was sufficiently pale). Instead, I was cast as the funny lab assistant who runs from bats and screams a lot.

Like some suicidally self-conscious demon, I swore that the Curse of the Cute and Funny Redhead would end with me. I vowed that I would never marry a redhead. I knew that a redheaded couple was bound to have redheaded children and that was a fate I naturally wouldn’t wish on anyone, especially my own kids.

Through the Happy Days of high school, I stubbornly dated only blond and brunette girls, hoping that they would see me as more than Ralph Malph or Richie Cunningham. Their autographs in my senior yearbook confirmed that they did not; ““Dear John, you are so cute and funny… have a nice life.''

I maintained my self-imposed ban on redheaded relationships until I was 25. Then, to nobody’s surprise but my own, I fell head over heels in love with a beautiful redhead. Happily, she fell for me in spite of her own vow to avoid Rusty relationships. As a redheaded girl named Wendy, she’d also had her fill of being compared to hamburger-chain icons. We have been married for nine years now and are the parents of three children. ““Oh, a redhead,’’ we sighed in delighted unison the moment each was born.

Now my wife and I must convince our children that red hair is lucky and special. Our goal is to help them take pride in themselves and find their own identities, separate from Krusty the Clown or Dennis Rodman on a red day. This is no easy task.

A family of five brunettes can enter a busy restaurant or walk down a crowded grocery aisle without generating a hint of interest, but put a family of redheads on the scene and it is as though the Ringling brothers… and Barnum… and Bailey are on parade. People stop, stare and even point.

““Well, I wonder where they got all that red hair?’’ we are asked whenever anybody makes the alarming discovery that the three redheaded children in the shopping cart belong to the two redheaded adults standing nearby. ““We have no idea… we founnd them under a giant cabbage near Chernobyl’’ is the answer we’d like to give. Instead we just smile and say, ““They’re all ours, thank you.’’ ““Wow, I bet there’s never a dull moment around your house,’’ comes their presumptive reply.

As proud parents we are frustrated that people focus more attention on our children’s hair color than on who they are and what they do. It is the same frustration held by millions of people in a society that places greater emphasis on appearance than on accomplishment.

““Oh, yes, he’s the bald guy who…’’ or ““You know, that short woman who…’’ are examples of all too common introductory phrases that fill our vernacular and open the door to stereotypes of all sorts. The truth is that not all obese people are jolly and not all redheads are clowns in baggy pants–and some white men can jump.

My children are still young. They have yet to encounter all the preconceptions that come with having red hair, but they soon will. They will also develop the sense of humor it takes to roll with the jokes, the remarks and the comparisons to silly characters. I just hope that their humor evolves as a natural and pleasant extension of who they are, and not as a forced response to society’s need for another clown.