Hair Today-Gone Tomorrow

My blog title--Silver Threads in the Red--means what, exactly?  I could give the short answer... but there's more to tell.

It was June 7, 1962.  High school friends, Ruth Ann and Lorraine, and I settled into an apartment on the 'Avenues' in Salt Lake City, Utah.  My goal:  To train for a Cosmetology license at Ex-Cel-Cis Beauty College.

The College had a clean, professional atmosphere with lots of opportunity, particularly if a student showed signs of promise and was willing to put in the hours.  I finished the one-year course, and the 2000 hours required, in ten months, close to the time of the next Utah State Board Licensing Exam.  Instruction days were set up with theory classes in the early a.m., physiology of the upper body, chemistry, electrical currents; rudiments of cutting, perming, coloring, styling, class participants using each other to practice on; the remainder of the day spent 'on the floor'--yes, REAL people, from the beginning!

You know how soothing it feels to have someone work with your hair and scalp.  I was so embarrassed my first day of being the one in the chair.  I fell fast asleep in the first few minutes!  We experimented on each other, too.  That's how Red became a welcome part of my life.

I remember the patron who was addicted to over-processed bleached hair.  She requested a perm.  She signed a waiver.  I was told to wrap for a perm.  Done.  Timed.  Ready to rinse and remove the rods.  That was made much easier than I expected when her hair broke off near the roots and the rods, with the lovely overly bleached-blond curls still attached, fell into the sink.

One of my first perm patrons was a smoker.  She was informed of the dangers of such while strong chemicals were present.  Still she continued.  As I leaned her head back into the sink to rinse the perm solution off, the woman flicked hot ash into the sink, missing her hair but igniting the solution or its fumes.  Talk about Snap, Crackle, Pop!  She got a nasty burn blister on her neck.

I loved cutting hair but the day a mom sat her pre-teen in my chair was difficult.  The child had very long, thick hair, beautiful but thinning, even balding.  Brushing through it was actually pulling hair out.  Keeping it pulled into a tight pony tail or braided had only made matters worse.  Cutting it to a much shorter length seemed the solution.  The mom would say, "Cut".  And with every snip, the girl would cry and scream, "No"!

Then there was the woman who came in with a Beehived French Twist, ... lice and oozing sores all over her scalp, discovered only when I was getting her ready for the shampoo/set she'd requested.  State health laws were designed to protect us and our customers from contagious disease but despite all else, I was instructed to complete this service, then sterilize or discard everything in my station.  It took a lot more than formaldehyde to rid myself of the creepy, crawly feeling I had for days afterward.

For graduation, we planned a rollerskating party.  As student body vice president, I had to attend but I didn't know how to skate.  One of my classmates said he could teach me to skate in one, easy lesson.  I was looking pretty cute in those days and liked him quite a bit so I agreed to give skating a try.  The one thing he didn't teach me before he turned me loose was how to stop.  The railing at one side of the rink must have been designed just for this purpose but instead of stopping, I grabbed it with both hands, coming in full speed ahead, went under it and did a complete somersault before coming to rest on the rink floor.  We moved our party to a house for food and drinks.  There was an orchard at the side of the property and we were playing some chase-type game.  I collided head-on with a tree.  It was evening! And Dark!  He didn't ask me out.

The beauty about training with Ex-Cel-Cis was the job placement guarantee.  I went to work immediately after passing my boards and actually got to use almost everything I had been trained to do.  Helen showed me the ropes.  The way things worked at school and how things were done in a salon were two different things.  With Ross, salon breaks were often spent at Fernwood eating Burnt Almond Fudge parfaits.  If I worked late (12-hr. days were not unusual) he drove me home.  He and his partner raised orchids as a hobby, supplying local florists with fresh tropicals.  He gave me a huge white Catalaya orchid, my first, for my 20th birthday.

Ross had left the salon to work with Elwood Heiner.  The elderly owner of the Ex-Cel-Cis company was no longer in charge.  Ross said I had a job waiting for me at Heiner's if I wanted it.  And that was it.  No interview.  No customary audition.  I was hired on Ross' recommendation, alone.

Elwood Heiner and his wife, Lou, had a small shop located in a hotel that also housed permanent residents.  He paid his operators the highest commission in town.  He employed a manicurist, Ailene and a wig specialist whose name I can't remember but whose walk I can still imitate.  Eilene had been with Heiner's for years.  Karen and another operator were about my age.  There were a couple of patrons who were difficult so we passed them around.  Elwood used those opportunities to remind us that, "You asked for work when you came here."  And then he'd smile.

One of my memorable patrons was elderly and had but six hairs on her head yet came, requesting the works--perm, color rinse (Rose Beige), and a manicure.  Each time, at the end of her service, she told the same story about being accosted by a robber in the elevator on the way to the salon and couldn't pay her bill.

There was the professional bridge player who often appeared for her appointment dressed in "paw-jah-mahs" and wearing a full-length fur coat--winter, summer, spring, fall--that she refused to take off during her salon service.  Her roots were snow white but she demanded the blackest-black permanent dye for her hair and brows.  A little Cruella De Vil-ish.  Can you imagine if I'd gotten a speck of dye or water on that fur?  I sometimes had to use every towel in the salon.

One little lady tipped me a quarter each week but four weeks prior to Dec. 25, she withheld them so she could give me a whole dollar at her final appointment before the holiday, my Christmas bonus.  The elderly woman who couldn't hear shouted when she talked, more so it seemed when she learned I had gotten married and felt the need to give me advice about birth control, sex, and whatever came to mind.  The entire salon got an education!  Another patron could not show up on time so she was told her appointment was an hour earlier than it actually was.  I wanted to be right on time for the patron who, at every visit,  showed me the gun she carried in her boot.

One of my regulars, Mrs. Speros, came with stories about preparations for her oldest daughter's wedding.  She and her husband were dedicated members of their Greek Orthodox Church congregation.  For months, she baked and preserved all the food that would be needed for this grand affair that included a sit-down dinner for hundreds.  It helped that her husband owned a restaurant.  A reception on the Mezzanine at Hotel Utah would follow the lengthy, church ceremony and I was invited!  I was asked to be the coiffure for the bridal party.  Never had I entered such an elegant home, surrounded by gardens, fountains and statues.  The wedding party left the house for the church.  The bride, her father and I were the only ones still in the house.  I was given the honor putting on her veil, then watching her, dressed in a breathtaking, hand-beaded dress, the veil floating on air behind her, meet her father at the front entrance to be whisked off to her fairy-tale wedding.

Barely 20-something then, with the prettiest red hair Clairol had to offer.  It's a part of who I was.  Silvered hair, once in a distant future, is now ...a part of who I am.