As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a Beautician.  I wanted to have my own Beauty Shop.

When I was a young teenager, I was already doing peoples hair.  I had pictures of our living room on a Saturday.  There would be kitchen chairs. all around the room, and ladies sitting in them with towels around their shoulders.  I didn’t have any salon shampoo capes, so you worked with what you had.  I might be giving one lady a perm and another might be sitting with color on her hair.  Then there is just the plain haircut.  Or just a roller set and comb out. This was an every Saturday happening.  I would take gifts or money.   I remember one of our neighbors wanted a roller set and comb out.  She lived across the street from us, so being the young teenager, I walked over to her house.  I put the rollers in her hair and walked back home.

After a few hours, she was dry, back then people didn’t have portable dryers in their home. So, she let her hair air dry.  I walked back to her house to finish the appointment.  I combed out her hair, back then everyone had the hair backcombed or another word was ratted.  That sounds weird now, back in the sixties that was a real word that people used.  I prefer the word backcomb.  It was a process where after you comb through the hair when the curlers were removed.  You would take a section of hair, hold it up and away from the head and put the comb at the top of the section and push down.  The hair would bunch up at the base of the head.  That was repeated all over the head. Then put some hairspray on the hair that is standing up all over.

You could then use a brush and start to make a style out of what looks like a rats nest.  Maybe that’s why it was called ratting the hair.  After you had the style pretty close you would take a pick, it was a piece of plastic with several metal pieces spaced out in about a half of an inch. And was about four inches long.  You could take the pick and insert it in the hair and lift the hair up or use it like a comb and smooth out the places that was needed.    After all of this work, she went to pay me, she went, I assumed to get her purse, but nope, she came back with a saucer and gave that to me for my work.  Now back in those days we were taught to be courteous to older people and not to talk back.  So, I thanked her and took my saucer and walked back home.  My mother was livid!!!! But what are you going to do. It’s someone you live close to, and you don’t make trouble in the neighborhood.

When I graduated from High School, I got a $500 scholarship to go to Beauty College, but unfortunately, I didn’t have a way to get back and forth and the school was an hour away.  So, my dream had to be put off.

When I was twenty-six, a Beauty School opened close to my home and I could pay for it monthly.  My Dream Job was finally a reality.