Enough About My Hair Already

One afternoon, Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble watched a TV commercial for Co Co Curly hair spray and decided it was time for new do's.

They raced over to the Salon de Beaute, where Pierre converted their helmets into mile-high pillars of poof. On the way home, Betty yelled every time she detected a breeze so that Wilma could hit the breaks of her convertible and wait out the wind, while cars behind them honked.

Betty and Wilma might have made it home with their hair intact had they not encountered a double-load dinosaur that zoomed past them.

My mother yelled, "Oh, no!" just as their hair went flatter than Sheetrock.

"Well!" Mom said, patting her own tower of tease during a 1966 rerun of that "Flintstones" episode. "That would never happen to me."

My sisters and I, sitting frog-legged in front of the TV, turned to look at our mother with adoring eyes.

"Why, Mommy?" we asked in unison.

"Aqua Net," she said.

We hummed our agreement.

"Yup," Mom said. "If Betty and Wilma had been wearing Extra Super Hold Aqua Net, they'd still have those beehives, wouldn't they girls?"

Why am I telling you this story? Because I clearly have failed to convince a number of readers that, no matter how often they write or call, I am not cutting my hair short.

Yes, I know I'm older than 40. I know it, and my knees know it. Yes, I know that most women of a "certain age" look younger with their hair sheared short. And, yes, I believe that you're only trying to help when you say my hair drags down my face like ears on a basset.

But you don't understand the legacy of my mom's hair. This mop is nothing compared with the wonders that hovered over her head most of her life. Compared with her, I'm just getting started.

My mom was only 4 feet 11 inches tall, and she was worried that we all would be taller than she was by third grade. She was worried about respect. It's hard to enforce discipline when your kids think they can just pick you up and throw you over their shoulders like a sack of chicken feed.

Taller hair, taller mother; that was Mom's philosophy. Fortunately, she had hair thicker than Irish oatmeal, and it responded to trims like roses to pruning.

My mother's hair brought cars to a crawl whenever she stood in our front yard. She gave folks good reason to stare. My sister Toni remembers one April when Mom came home with her hair shaped like an Easter basket, with a braid for a handle. A little nest with fake eggs was tucked inside with bobby pins.

"That Gary," Mom said. "He thinks of everything."

Gary was her hairdresser, and he always was conjuring new ways to tease Mom's hair a little bit higher and a whole lot wider. I waited on him sometimes at the counter at the restaurant where I worked in the summer of 1974. He'd pull out a napkin and start sketching.

"Got big plans for your mother's hair next week," he'd say, his pen tearing at the little square of paper like an artist tormented by genius.

I'd lean in for a look at the swirls and curls and say, "That's real nice, Gary."

("You be good to Gary," Mom always said. "My hair is in his hands.")

I have another memory of Mom's hair from that summer, and to this day, I cannot watch a baseball player slide into home without thinking of it.

Mom and I were teammates in a women's softball league, and she was so short and her hair was so high that pitchers never could seem to find her strike zone. She had more walks to first than everyone else combined, but she also slid into home every chance she got. Sometimes her hair would slide, too, to the side of her head like an ice-cream cone in August.

She never was alarmed. She'd just stand up, dust off the back of her pedal pushers, and then reach up and -- whump -- punch her beehive right back in place.

The oohs and ahhs would rise from the admiring crowd.

Mom would just smile, point to her beehive, and yell, "Aqua Net!"

That's some legacy.

And it's mine to wear.

Watch Connie's video blog about her mother's hair below.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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Connie Schultz honors mom's legacy