Every single time JCPenney releases a list of store closings across the United States, my heart stops for two reasons. Most importantly, I worry about the loyal employees who have stayed with the company. Secondly, I absolutely panic about the 2nd most important thing in my mom's life: her hair. My mom is as faithful to the JCPenney salon in Middlesboro, Kentucky, as she is faithful to her church, East Cumberland, in the same town. She visits each place once a week. She deeply cares about the people who surround her with kindness at each location. I am convinced while she plays the piano at church and while she sits under the dryer at the salon, she is praising God the whole time.
I don't know if I am supposed to call what we've been experiencing the Corona Virus (how many words is it) , COVID-19, a pandemic or something else far too scientifically advanced for my understanding. All I know is in the interest of public health and safety, the salon at JCPenney was closed and so was Mom's church along with many other places of worship in the Bluegrass State. First, I heard that the salon was closed, and I felt my knees get weak. Because I'm a combination of two very diverse sets of DNA, I instantly thought, "I'll pay someone to go to her house and do her hair for church." Then, when I learned that her church was honoring social distancing and postponing services until a later date, I let out a sigh of relief strong enough to shake the trees on the Pinnacle. The attention Mom's hair demands is heavily due to the fact her church services are televised and she plays the piano and/or organ on camera. Long before televised services though, Mom's hair has thrived in a world of its own; I pretty much consider it my older sibling.
Hours became days. Days became weeks. I won't disclose the actual amount of time she managed to live in denial that the salon remained closed compounded by the fact that her options for hair help were limited. Day after day, she stayed at home, waited on the Governor's 5:00 report, watched reruns of the Virginian and Gun Smoke while her hair survived yet another day without proper attention. I had begun a calendar of care in my kitchen at home to calculate the days before I knew I had to dig deep and leap out of my comfort zone to do the right thing. I started an Amazon cart, and I didn't need a single roll of toilet paper.
If you're between the ages of 30 - 60 and you grew up in this part of the world, I could probably just whisper the words, "sponge rollers," to you and make you break out in hives. I've written about those tools of torture before and won't give them too much free publicity here because I still think they are the work of the Satan himself. Regardless of my childhood trauma - especially Easter weekend - I had to break down and go to Walgreen's and buy sponge rollers. I stood in front of the shelf just glaring at them like I would glare at a long division math problem if it was on a shelf. I equally loathe both. I had tried to buy plastic rollers on Amazon, but I guess the hand sanitizer and toilet paper hoarders had a fashion emergency, too, and bought up all of the plastic rollers like the professionals would use on my mom. Because people I've never met before were greedy, I had to buy sponge rollers for my mom. She deserved better.
The negotiation and denial about her hair continued with every Facetime discussion. Every night we would chat about the delight of nibbling on popcorn while watching television, my dogs' antics for the day, and whether or not UT would get to play football in fall 2020. Toward the end of those discussions, I'd find a way to ask about her hair, and she'd shut me down like a nondisclosure agreement in Beverly Hills. Her hair was fine. Just fine.
In a few days, the UPS saints of delivery dropped off a huge box at her door, and she opened it up to discover that the prize egg was a bonnet style hair dryer just like what the pros use at the salon. This pivot served as a turning point in our relationship. In a way, she felt like I would feel if someone sent me deodorant as a gift. Would that mean I stink? Did the dryer mean the end was near? Due to the gadget Apple made for my pocket, I confirmed the dryer had been delivered. Silence. She said not one word. I knew I had to wait until she was ready. You can't help someone who isn't ready to help herself, right?
"It was on a Sunday..." remember that song? Well, let me tell you, it was on a Sunday that my mother, for the first time in my nearly 5 decades of life, told me it was time for me to wash her hair and style it. I'll remember that day for the rest of my days. When she ended the call, I lost my appetite. I sat in a dark room and listened to the silence. I prayed. I remembered Proverbs 16:31, "The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness," and I wished the second word of that scripture was different. My mom's glory had become my responsibility, and I accepted the challenge. Within an hour of closing out the planning session, I jumped on YouTube and watched every possible video about Southern "traditional" hair. I thought about Truvy from Steel Magnolias and wished she was with me. Then, I thought, what a nice problem to have!
My mom is healthy. She is active. She is technologically savvy and knows no fear. She is fervent in her faith. She still works, teaches piano lessons, and worships in the same church she attended as a child. How blessed am I that her hair is her greatest personal concern in this time of worry for our planet?
All night long, I remembered going to the beauty shop with her when I was a kid. She was faithful to a gaudy establishment decorated in red and black that reminded me of where the Brady Bunch kids' aunt Jenny may have lived. Sometimes I'd go with Mom to her appointments, but I knew to stay out of the way. The multiple sizes of plastic rollers were stored in huge baskets covered with dust. I think that's why I hate baskets as decor now. I'd grab a basket and start building structures with the rollers. I'd use hair pins to make the creations more stable. By the time I had built a whole community of buildings, Mom would be free from the dryer and the stylist would start sculpting her hair into something that would withstand a swarm of locusts, a hurricane, a tornado, or all three at once. I always looked forward to the spray lacquer spewing out of a huge can because it would signal the end of a very long afternoon. I'd bury my head in my knees or hide in another room until the spray noise stopped. Once it stopped, I knew I'd be set free from the only Mediterranean decor' inspired business on Winchester Avenue and she'd take me to Clancy's as a peace offering. On the days she got a perm, too, she'd even take me to Woolworth's. No balloon on a stick was fair compensation for taking in the odor of a perm in the 70s, but I was at her mercy. Now, at age 48, I was put in charge of creating a hair design that would withstand the plagues mentioned in the scriptures AND a pandemic. No one could be less qualified.
I woke up Monday morning and desperately wanted to pull the covers over my head and pretend to be sick like I did when I knew Mrs. Parsons was going to make us do the physical fitness test in middle school gym class. At age 48, one does not have the option to play sick when a true need is at bay. I got up, got ready, and I selected clothes from the closet that would be easy to remove by first responders just in case Mom killed me for failing my mission. It's important to note that it takes me about 5 minutes to style my hair; 3 minutes if I use the high setting on my dryer. I hugged my dogs a little tighter when I left; I knew I may not make it back. I listened to Dolly Parton the whole way to Middlesboro because she shares Mom's philosophy. Say it with me, Kori, "The higher the hair, the closer to God." I arrived at Mom's house, put on my mask, put on my gloves, stepped out of my car, opened the hatch, got out my stash of black market Lysol (paternal influence) and hosed myself down from head to toe. Mom opened the door, and in one flash quicker than thunder, I felt like my little sweet WoWo was looking back at me.
Not only was a large portion of my life dedicated to watching my mom's hair get "did," it was dedicated to watching my mom do her mother's hair. There was a little white plastic basket covered in a clear plastic bag that stayed on the shelf in my WoWo's bathroom. It was a fragile container, but she never got a new one. Inside the container were permanent rods and hair pins of all shapes and sizes. My mom pin curled my WoWo's hair, and those were glorious days for me. While they had set up shop in the kitchen, I could walk the railroad tracks, play with Spiffy, or piddle with my papaw Steve in the barn. Those days flew by and not one snack of bribery was ever needed to encourage me to participate. Most of the time, my papaw even paid me with a Lincoln dollar for coming to visit.
So now...my turn had come. What an honor!
I remember my friend Stephanie telling me about being in mom's class as a 4th grade student. Stephanie said one day there was a string hanging out from the back of Mom's shirt, and Mom asked her to cut off the string. Stephanie was so honored she had been asked to complete such a tedious task located so close to Mom's hair. I was being asked to cut off a lot more than a string, but I knew if Stephanie could handle the pressure, I might stand a chance of doing the same.
Mom sat still as a church mouse on a dining room chair in the middle of her kitchen. Just like she did with teaching me how to swim and how to drive, she just turned me loose. One by one, she'd hand me a roller, and I'd twig it up with a prayer. A few times, I noticed her eyes were closed tightly as if she had just eaten a lemon with too much juice. I tried really hard not to hurt her. I just sectioned it off one part at a time like the videos showed, and in about an hour, I had her whole head in curlers. She moved to the make shift dryer stool and together we sat in silence. I wanted to finish this task before WalMart closed so I could go buy her some cute spring hats if I had failed. Around 8:00, she said her hair was dry, and back to the curling chair we went.
Like Garth Brooks, I'm not big on social graces, but the Queen of England couldn't have demonstrated more delicate movement in any curtsy compared to how carefully I removed that first roller. I let go of those strands of hair and they sprung right back up against her head as if they were trying to hide from me. One after the next, "Snap, Crackle, Pop," they'd come out of the rollers and go right back into place. Shirley Temple needed me in her life. Every single curl stuck, and I managed to brush them out without Mom shedding a single tear. I pulled here, tugged there, swooped a little this way, and tucked a little that way. Eventually, she looked like my momma again. I sent her to the bathroom to inspect the final product, and she came back with the biggest can of Big Sexy hairspray I have ever seen in my life. I stood there still as a branch haint. She said, "Here, spray it." I couldn't move. She said, "What is wrong with you? " I said, "You're going to have to give me a minute to accept the fact that you own anything that says, 'Big Sexy,' written on it." She laughed until she couldn't breathe; I was in shock.
So, I hosed her down with Big Sexy just like I had hosed myself down with Lysol. She seemed so relieved, and God knew I was thankful that He had carried me through yet another valley of despair. I tidied up my work space and put all of the chairs back around the table where they've sat since I was six months old. This was the closest I had stood to my mom in many days, and I prayed that I hadn't carried in any sort of germs to harm her health while we completed a necessary challenge. I sprayed myself out of the house and found my way back to Cedar Fork. As I left her driveway, I caught her smiling at her reflection in the storm door. Friends, let me remind you, I was thankful for mercy.
I sincerely hope that JCPenney's salon will burst wide open and Mom can get all gussied up and resume her normal beauty routine soon, but until then, I guess we have found our new normal. If you're a hair stylist, please know, I have more respect for your professional skill set now than I ever have had before. Confidence is key, and you provide that for your clients. How can anyone say, "Thank you," for that?
