Hair Spray

Hair Spray

I saw an ad for hair spray the other day and it reminded me of a time long ago when I first saw the uses of it as a small boy.  This was in the fifties and “big hair” was the rage.  Many girls and women had the bouffant and beehive hair styles including my sister.  There were lots of curls and hairspray was needed to give it that certain look.

We lived in a housing project in downtown Atlanta close to Georgia Tech, The Varsity and the area around our neighborhood became the Olympic Park during the 1996 games.  Our apartment was small and my sister had her bedroom and I shared one with my younger brother.  There were tiles on the floor, brown with black accent tiles in each doorway threshold going into each room.  I was not allowed to cross the black tile going into her room.  In my mind it was like the black tile represented a ten foot high wall that I needed to climb over to see what bounty was on the other side so there was always a cat and mouse type game with me trying to sneak in and her keeping me out.

My sister kept her room neat and tidy with an almost OCD like perfection to it.  Everything was in its place; records were neat and alphabetized by artist or song name.  She had her little make up table with all the items placed equidistant to each other in order of how they would be used or applied.  Toward the right side of here table was a can or two of hairspray.

Kids being kids I always went in her room when she was not there to mess with her things and rearrange things since I knew it drove her nuts with things out of place.  I rearranged things slightly to see how long it would take her to realize that things had been changed around.  It usually did not take long as her routine was to go in her room look at everything including her record albums then come out screaming and yelling at me or going to our parents about what I had done in her room.

The times she was in her room and I crossed this imaginary line of black tile I would be met with things thrown at me or pushed out into the hallway.  As we grew bigger there needed to be other deterrents to keep me out and at bay.  Hairspray became that deterrent. I would run into her room she would break out the hairspray to stop my advances into her sacred place.  Once she finished spraying me with either Aqua Net or Happy Hair my face was frozen with the look of horror as the liquid hardened to create a funny and mixed facial expressions similar to this:

It was lucky for me that I did not lose an eye with all of the mist going onto my face and eyes but we were kids of the fifties who did not wear seat belts or could lie in the rear windows of moving vehicles.  We turned out alright if I do say so.

A little boy and his grandfather are raking leaves in the yard.  The little boy finds an earthworm trying to get back into its hole.  He says, "Grandpa, I bet I can put that worm back in that hole."  The grandfather replies, "I'll bet you five dollars you can't.  It's too wiggly and limp to put back in that little hole."

The little boy runs into the house and comes back out with a can of hairspray.  He sprays the worm until it is straight and stiff as a board.  Then he puts the worm back into the hole.  The grandfather hands the little boy five dollars, grabs the hairspray, and runs into the house.  Thirty minutes later the grandfather comes back out and hands the little boy another five dollars.

The little boy says, "Grandpa, you already gave me five dollars."  The grandfather replies, "I know.  That's from your grandma.

Let’s rejoice from our days of youth and find those funny moments in life.

Ice