Imagine

I'm participating in Lisa's Imagine - Creative Writing Thursdays. After looking at this lovely photo, she said to write whatever came to mind. so here goes:

Look at those curls! They used to be called ringlets and maybe they still are but you don't see them anymore except in old photographs or movies. I can remember when the first curling irons came out, I was about 10 years old and my parents engaged the teenage daughters of a friend to babysit my younger sister and I for the evening.

The teenage girls loved my long, thick hair that had a bit of a natural wave. They saw the potential for wonderful, tumbling ringlets. Their new curling iron took a very long time to heat up but finally it was hot enough to start the process. After much discussion and trial and error about exactly how to hold the iron and how many curls to make and how long to keep the hot iron in my hair so that the ringets would hold, their efforts were successful and I emerged with a few of the coveted curls.

I don't remember how they turned out exactly but I did enjoy being the center of attention with the two girls. However, my mother was less than happy with my new hairdo. Instead of gasping in admiration, she was furious!

Her belief was that if you had some natural curl in your hair, tampering with nature via a hot iron or a permanent (perm was we call them now) would destroy the natural curl and make your hair straight!

There, that's what this picture reminded me of. It was fun to bring a distant memory into the present. Thanks, Lisa for the opportunity.