Chapter 18
I saw a little girl dash across the street the other day and from half a block away, I could’ve sworn that she was wearing a roller bonnet.
When I got closer, I found that it was a KNITTED cap that fit somewhat loosely but for a split second I entertained grand illusions of the rebirth of such bonnets!
Remember back in the pre-electric hot rollers’ days. Way back in the dark ages when most girls didn’t even own a hairdryer—that was the days of BONNET hairdryers. Such things as handheld blow-dryers were a thing of the far distant future.
Those were the days of seams up the back of our hose, “My Three Sons” on television, and WHITE lipstick! And on Saturday morning we religiously washed our hair, drug out the rollers which were the size of juice cans, and commenced to beautify ourselves for Saturday night dates!
When we got our hair rolled, we put the roller bonnet on to keep the rollers in place. Now, a girl was known by her bonnet—mine was a sheer blue material with a white lace pom-pom on the top. My girlfriend had a red and white polka dotted one.
And we NEVER traded! NEVER! Why, if my bluebonnet just happened to be seen dragging Main with a certain young man, it’d better be MY boyfriend or else it didn’t take long for HIM to want to know what I was doing with so and so. A girl could get herself in mess by lending her bonnet!
Then THAT night when we took the rollers out wasn’t we just plumb gorgeous!? ’Course after looking at ourselves look like a receiving station for cablevision all day I suppose most anything would’ve been beautiful!
Hot rollers replaced our roller bonnets—blow-dry haircuts replaced hot rollers. Our seams which we never could keep straight died when pantyhose was born and “My Three Sons” has been replaced by “Family”. And I wonder just exactly WHAT do young girls do on Saturday mornings anymore!!!!