How I Got Them.
I remember the time my mom tried her best to give me those ringlet curls like Shirley Temple had in her movies. I had waist-length blonde hair. The color was almost white. Grandpa called it Toe Head blonde. I never learned why that was what the color was called, just that mine was a very light pale blonde. In the summer it would get even paler and I would get little pimple-like sores on the back of my head. Mom called it prickle heat, I just know it hurt and itched which caused me to get in trouble if I scratched it very much.
In order to have the curls by Sunday when we went to church, she would start on Friday. She would wash my hair and then tie little one-inch squares of hair in a strip of cloth. She would start at the bottom of the length of hair and roll the piece of cloth up to my scalp and then tie it in a not. The hair had to be wet so she kept putting more water on the rolls as she went along. This took what seemed like forever to me, I hated to have my hair messed with and complained a lot. This usually got me scolded; my hair jerked, or a time or two hit with the hairbrush.
It took 3 days for the hair to dry so I had to keep the rag curlers in until Sunday morning. The rags hurt to sleep on so I was always trying to find a comfortable spot to sleep in. My brothers teased me a lot; I didn’t want to go anywhere so people wouldn’t make fun of me. There were dozens of these rag curls in my hair so I looked like I had a shaggy rug on my head. The boys called me rag head which caused many a fight.
Come Sunday morning when we were all ready to go to church mom would carefully untie each rag and pull one end down so the curl would stay in a long ringlet. This went on until all the rags had been untied. If she was happy with her creation she would attach a big bow to the top of my head and we would be off to church. If not she would brush out the curls and I would get a ponytail or braids. Sometimes the curls would last until we got back home, most time they didn’t and I would have a headful of limp curls that usually hung in my face.
I was glad when that style went out of fashion. Mom had beautiful natural curly auburn red hair. She always looked like she had just gone to the beauty shop. Needless to say, my hair was a bit of a disappointment for her. I was glad when my little sister got old enough to take my place as her hairstyle Ginny pig. When I got to be a teenager I tried to fix my sister’s hair but I think she just tolerated me so I would spend time with her.
Neither one of us girls got the curly hair the boys did and were always trying to calm it down. I do remember my one year one of the boys had the top of his hair darkened and the sides left blonde, fenders they called it in the late fifties. I looked through the family picture album and didn’t find any pictures of these attempts at stylishness, thank the Lord. That is a reminder of childhood I don’t want to hang around.
And today we shake our heads at man buns and half-shaved heads. When you stop to think about it, kids nowadays got nothing on us. We had some pretty cool styles in our day. Were you a fashion plate in your day? Wait long enough and your favorite style will come back around.
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