1950 - Babette, Karolina. I have many pictures of Tante Babette with me in them. I won't put them here, a few is enough. Too ba

1950 - Babette, Karolina. I have many pictures of Tante Babette with me in them. I won't put them here, a few is enough. Too bad she turned her face away from the camera so much. (see description) Mother was fond of telling me the story of my hair. She said I was born with a full head of thick black hair. As it fell out, it was replaced with fine blond hair. Eventually it got long enough and it began to curl. She said everone admired the ring around my head. She also said the first time she cut them off, they never grew back. From then on I had poker-straight hair.
So now, I get to tell the story of my curls. Because I had a couple of bad experiences with hairdressers in my teens, I became a do-it-yourself person. With the exception of a period of several years later in my life, I cut, permed, and styled my own hair. After I married I cut Ron's hair. When the children came along I cut theirs also. Many years later I decided enough was enough.
I started taking the boys to the local barber shop. (Do you all remember Mr. Bellace's?) We chatted from time to time and he learned about my distrust of hairdressers. I told him if, for example, I wanted a half an inch off the bottom of my hair, that's exactly what I wanted - a half an inch, not three quarters of an inch, or one inch, or heaven forbid, two inches. He laughed and said he thought he could do that. I raised my eyebrow at him and left it at that.
He'd tease me about it from time to time, and one time I said I was next after the boys were done. He got me in the chair and when I was all settled in he snipped his scissors a few times, grinned at me in the mirror and said, "How much?". I tried to hide my smile and pretended a dirty look and told him, "Half an inch off the bottom".
He was true to his word. A couple cuts later and I allowed him to layer my hair, but only if he followed my own layered cut - a half an inch, of course. From then on I let him take off more. He tried to talk me into some other fancy stuff from time to time, like a different cut, no thanks, or coloring, no thanks, says I, I just want my reliable wash and wear. One day he said something about my perm and I said I hadn't permed my hair in over three years. He said I definitely had some wave low at the back. I told him the story of my baby curls.
Long story short - he wanted to experiment with cutting the back. I relented. Over the course of the next 4 or 5 cuts he brought out all the curl I had. Now, THAT man was a hairdresser, and I had to find him in a barber shop!