Carleen always gave us a Toni the day before school pictures; she was making us beautiful. She shampooed our hair, yanked our snarls with a sharp-toothed comb, then sat us in a row at the yellow Formica kitchen table. With old bath towels draped over our shoulders, Betty, Claudia, and I perched on the matching vinyl chairs, waited our turn. First, she Scotch-taped our wet bangs to our foreheads, then with Mom’s good sewing scissors, snipped them straight across. Starting at the crowns of our heads, she carefully wrapped each combed lock with a little white square of tissue paper, then tightly rolled it in pink plastic rods, ordering us to, “Sit still and quit whining.” Finally, she poured the processing solution over our heads, into our eyes and down our backs, tilting her head sideways so she wouldn’t pass out from the reek of ammonia. We held the cotton strips tight to our forehead so we wouldn’t go blind.
By morning, our bangs had shrunk three inches above our eyebrows, four inches where there were cowlicks. Flat on top, the rest of our hair was so tight and curly it stuck out in triangles on each side like Bozo the Clown, but one side was always higher than the other, so it looked like our hair was on crooked. We also stank to high heaven for a week.
One year, the year I was eight, Mom put Betty and Claudia in charge of my hair. They took me to a barbershop and pocketed the balance of what it would have cost at the beauty salon.
Leaving the barbershop in tears, my sisters made me trail ten feet behind, saying I looked like a boy and so ugly they couldn’t be seen with me, laughing and taunting “we don’t even know you” and calling me a “poor little orphan girl.”
However, I think my hair did look better in my school picture that year.
to be continued…
© 2018. Catherine Sevenau.
All rights reserved.
Susan Dalberg says
Funny! Older sisters are our crosses to bear because our mothers didn’t or couldn’t. Same grade for me, my sister “trimmed” my bangs. She’d cut (kitchen scissors of course) then comb down. “Not even, try again”. Snip, snip, same same. 1/2 inch sticking straight out. She laughed.
Catherine Sevenau says
No wonder we are neurotic.
Gail says
You were so cute they were jealous/envious.
Catherine Sevenau says
I don’t know, I think they just saw me as a pain in the neck.
Rebecca Lawton says
Well you’ve got great hair. And no doubt great food. Carry on!
Mark Chapman says
I guess I could go back and look at my class pictures from 1956 to see how the girls were wearing their hair then, but I would heartily agree that your hair looked better in that picture than the others of you and your sisters.
Linda Troolin says
Yes it did.
Rebecca Lawton says
Well, you’re cute both ways, but the minimalist look of 3rd grade is pretty happening!
Catherine Sevenau says
The only thing I spend more money on than my hair is food. Now I wonder why…