GOOD AND BAD HAIR DAYS

When I went to the Hillsboro class reunion last June, Carole Sexton said that one thing she remembered about me in high school was that I cut my own hair. And then she asked me if I still did that. The answer I gave was “Yes and no.”

I usually get my locks trimmed at some kind of cutting place, sometimes an exorbitantly priced one where I also get it colored, or at a walk-in place for $10.00. But I have also been known to take the scissors to it myself if I’m ready to go somewhere and there’s a tress that just won’t behave. And for some strange reason, the hairdressers can always tell!

The sad thing is that the reason Carole probably remembered was because of an incident our freshman year involving Kate Pritchett. I really did cut my own hair back then and could usually get away with it because I had lots of body in it and a natural wave. So it didn’t usually look too bad afterwards. But one time after I cut it fairly short and it came out pretty well, Kate asked me to cut hers, too. So she came home from school with me and I proceeded to cut hers like mine. But Kate’s hair wasn’t LIKE mine; it was straight as a stick and somehow it didn’t look the same as mine at all. Nevertheless, she went home with her new do.

The next day Kate and Jane, her sister, avoided me like the plague, and someone told me that her mother had had to take her to the BARBER SHOP, back then reserved for boys only. I was pretty mortified and sorry I had agreed to ruin her hair – when I finally got to see her, it really was as short as a boy’s.

And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to describe the “beauty parlor” of those days. There was a waiting room, just like those of today, but each operator had a three-sided booth with a sink in it under a pull down slab of marble (or something like that). We could go in one of these cubicles, get our hair shampooed and set in a somewhat private atmosphere. Then we would be led back to sit under the dryer. And of course, there were NO MALES at all, either as customers or stylists. This was a female world and we wanted it that way. Just like in Steel Magnolias.

So what happened? How did we let the men invade our privacy in this area of our lives? I don’t LIKE for them to see me with my hair wet or with foils all over my head. Bring back the old days and let it be a place for women to gather and discuss the latest gossip with the regulars. Let the men get their hair cut in the barber shop with the striped pole. Somehow, I don’t think anyone is listening, but I did like it better back then.