Thirteen years old, Mom has taken me to the Beauty Salon to get my hair done. For years she tried to do it herself, me sleeping with nails in my scalp. You know the kind of rollers I'm talking about, that is if you are from my age group. Brush curlers with spikes sticking in your head. How in the world was anyone suppose to sleep with daggers poking them all night long?
Saturday nights were all the same a ritual of curling our hair for Sunday morning. I have two younger sisters neither of which seemed to mind the night's torture. I on the other hand cried like a baby. I got awful headaches from laying on those abominations. My hair never had a chance to dry the curls in. Within an hour I was pulling the pins and spiked Brillo pads out of my hair. My mother would have pity on me and help me take them out in a manner that would not pull every last strand of hair from my head.
Next morning my hair had a floppy kind of look. My sisters would be proud of their curls and waves, while mom tried to manage my unmanageable hair. We would head off to church in our Sunday best, me looking every bit like my nick name 'String Bean', thin, lanky, uncoordinated, and a head of hair with a mind of it's own. The dress I wore just never seemed to fit right, while my sisters enjoyed swirling and giggling like kids will.
So, when we moved from Missouri to Maine, my mother tried a new tactic in regards to my hair, a Beauty Parlor. There I could sit under a dryer and not have to sleep on the rollers. I still got headaches, the roller may have been pink with sponges on them, but the lady doing up my hair (they were all the same no matter which woman was doing the fixing) always wrapped my hair so tight it pulled at the roots and caused me pain. True it was faster and easier on the scalp but still a dreaded situation.
I like to read. Remember the National Geographic magazines in the Doctors office? I loved reading them while we waited our turn. My grandparents even gave them to our family as a year long Christmas gift. They were my first Play Boy/Girl magazines. I can not tell a lie, I looked at the pictures of the naked natives. Women with their droopy boobs, men with all their family jewels showing, and round bellied kids hanging on to the closest adult. It was fodder for my imagination.
Beauty Parlors didn't have National Geographic magazines, their style leaned more towards lady's magazines, like Ladies Home Journal, Good House Keeping, Cosmopolitan, and Red Book. They were all the same, like today, they had secrets to keeping your man interested, what was in for fashion and what was not, food recipes and homemaking tips. Boring If I'd thought of it I could have taken a comic book with me. They were my favorite at home reading material. I loved the heroes and the ads. You could make money with some of their offers to buy more comic books. I once sold Christmas cards from one of those ads and won a sleeping bag. But my favorite ads were how to go from wimpy to buff in no time. They always showed this skinny, pimply thirteen year old boy trying to make muscles next to the last Mr. Universe. If I'd had a comic book it would have offered better reading. But if I had been reading a comic book that day I would have missed my awakening.
Thirteen years old, my mother has taken me to the Beauty Parlor. Having nothing better to read I check out the only options available. I've only once see a copy of any Red Book magazine. I picked it up that day in 1967 and scanned the index for something palatable to read. I came across an article called My Daughter, My Son. I had no idea what the topic was about but decided it sounded interesting. It was about a woman who's daughter had told her she was living as a man and planned to have surgery to complete the process. What?! What?! No?! Really?! O My God?! For Real?! For real. My eyes popped. My brain popped. I saw lights flashing. I understood. Deep down inside a glimmer of hope, promise, a look into my own future. Once I knew it was possible it became a constant desire. Though I traveled many roads around the subject for many years, it has started to become a reality.
