I was born, not to the manor, so to speak with hair of curls, but with straight as a board hair. Now some boards are not exactly straight, but warped. Daddy hated warped boards. I hated straight hair.
Anyway, we took what we were given and ran with it.
Mama put my hair up in curls on Saturday nights using rollers cut from strips of two ply paper grocery bags hoping for Sunday blessings on her little undainty daughter. My hair was Saturday night fresh washed and rolled into little torture knots while we listened to the Grand Ole Opry. Saturday nights were not for sleeping heavenly peace, but listening to Earnest Tubb telling about Walking The Floor Over You and the cloggers stomping the planks in Nashville, Tennessee while I spent the middle of the night rooting around in the bed trying to find a comfortable place for my bag tied curls to rest and dry to Shirley Temple certified beautiful.
"Earline, stop your squirming".
"But Mama you're hurting me".
"Well missy, beauty hurts. You want to look like a goat or Shirley Temple"?
So I think my Mama must have thought of me as goatish Monday thru Saturday, but maybe I was her pride and joy hair curled little darling on Sundays. I suppose one out of seven ain't too bad.
And so it went...................
We were scheduled to have our school pictures taken.
I was scheduled to spend the night with my down the road friend, Bonnie Faye. Bonnie Faye was born God blessed with blond and corkscrew curled hair.
" Bonnie Faye, I have to wait to another time, cause Mama gotta roll my hair".
" Granny can roll your hair, she cuts mine".
" Well……………...I reckon".
Maybe cutting corkscrew curls and curling straight hair is a special talent.
Hope Granny Lambert knows how to do straight hair curls.
So the night was spent being tortured, while not sleeping, with some of Bonnie Faye's Granny's, red rubber tipped aluminum hair rollers scalp clamped onto my straight as a board hair.
The morning came with fog so thick we couldn't see the front gate. Bonnie Faye's Granny groomed my beautiful curls while I took a nap standing in front of her old dressing mirror.
Bonnie Faye got the brush straightening of her life that day. She wore a cute red plaid clamp ribbon in her hair that morning for pictures taking.
I wore the most beautiful curls ever twisted into my hair.
Brown haired Shirley Temple and blond haired Shirley Temple Jr. walked out the door and into fog.......................really THICK fog.
Bonnie Faye's Granny looked brow furrowed when she watched us walk off the porch into the fog of the century that picture taking morning.
I felt something was off as we hoofed it down through the fog while droplets of collected moisture tightened Bonnie Faye's ringlets. I felt the droplets falling onto my sholders as a relaxing of my beautiful fog sogged curls took place.
"Please Jesus, let me have my picture taken with beautiful curls in my hair today".
The walk down to the mailbox bus stop in blinding fog took it's toll. My curls disappeared into that fog of the century while Bonnie Faye's curls turned in grown.
Life happens to the least of us.
