The beautiful things that make me pause for a few moments to give thanks, not just on Thanksgiving Day, but most every day, almost always begin and end with women.
These thankful reveries are not just limited to the present day women in the salon, but also memories through the past of women who may not have flown across the Atlantic like Amelia Earhart, but who just made history with me. It does not happen without some profound influences that a small town boy grows up into a “big city” man in love with beauty.
I am so thankful for the kind of mama that “raised me” and the roof with the philosophy, “Don’t ask why. Ask why not.” And you better believe she meant every word of it. Why be a brunette 12 months of the year when it only takes a drive to the local TWL and, voila, it was vibrant auburn for my kindergarten graduation in May and highlighted blonde just in time for first-grade orientation. All after just 30 minutes of processing time. Why not, indeed?
Mesmerized by my mama while I would “ride shotgun” in the plush seats of the family Oldsmobile with nothing between us except her purse — usually navy for summer or white for Christmas — we created a colorful rainbow of memories for which I am thankful today.
Now you know the mantra the two of us lived our lives by then and still today, even if she’s now upstairs running things in Heaven. My mama remembered cinched waists with wide belts, false eyelashes in the late ’70s, and home permanents by Ogilvie — all with laughs and without apology. Thanksgiving is a time for “thank you” to my Amelia Earhart, my mama, for giving me the wings to fly my own plane, from parachute pants in neon colors, fluorescent shoelaces in Converses, and Mohawks in the ninth grade, to a very fulfilling career today, yes, with beauty as its focus. And why not?
The wings, flips, beehives, and even pageboys, bobs and waves of hairstyles modeled by my mama, Jacqueline Kennedy or the latest cover of the fashion magazines on the floorboard of that Oldsmobile were daring for small town America, but they sure were pretty.
I am so thankful this week as I blow out 43 candles on my birthday cake that my definition of beauty was shaped by my mama’s Youth Dew perfume wafting through the car, the Fats Domino eight-track we sang along to even if we didn’t hit every note, and the glint of confidence in her perfectly-lined eyes as she winked, then stomped the gas pedal onto our next memory, all while being beautiful.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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