Welcome to a new series of posts dubbed In Memoriam. They won't just be about people. They will be about not just people, but places and other things that are becoming a thing of the past.
This week I got word that my hair salon is closing in March. I was shockingly sad about it. And then I thought...maybe it's not so shocking.
This salon was the only hair salon I'd ever been to, and I just turned 32. Every haircut I've ever had was here, minus maybe one home haircut or two. I'm not sure about that. I just have a vague memory of my mom owning a pair of hair-cutting scissors that were hard to use.
When I was little, it was straight into the hairdresser's chair. We will call her Esther---names in this post will be changed. Esther would put a kid-size apron over me. I preferred the ones with the dogs on them, but at other times, there was a Humpty Dumpty-patterned one. Now, when I was young, that was the first part of a haircut. I wouldn't get my hair washed or dried with the big loud dryers. It was simply a trim. Which was a good thing when I was little! Evidently, I was freaked out about haircuts at first. Not 'til I was almost a teenager would I also get my hair washed and dried, and graduate to the big black aprons. And the hair dryers weren't so scary at all. I came to love getting my hair washed, too. At least I wasn't the ladies getting dye jobs. I couldn't imagine sitting in the chair for hours---a fate surely worse than death!
Hair salons have always been good places for a chat, and mine was no different. Esther and I talked about quite a few things, like family and school, perhaps. My little sister once enjoyed chatting with her about Mario Kart. And soon, I was taller than Esther was. This pleased me as I was always one of the shortest kids in class. She would always have a good laugh over it.
A visit was a delight to the senses. The changing walls. The salon's walls have been yellow, purple, and blue. Maybe more. Holiday decor on the wall above mirror. Shelves of Bed Head products at the front desk, and often a bowl of candy or cookies. (Halloween and Christmas provided ample sweet opportunities.) Esther's magic changing photo screen of her kids. The Minute Minders she'd set to let her know when it was time to check on someone's dye job. Our soft rock station of choice often played on the radio, too. And then the equipment itself: the comb sitting in a cylinder of transparent blue liquid. Clips that were used to pile strands of hair on my head. Black and white headshots on the walls featuring sleek haircuts.
Even when I wasn't the one in the chair, the hair salon might be a fun place to go. When I was too young to stay home alone, I'd go with my mom or dad and choose from the assortment of Barbie coloring books, which were a blast. By the coffee table, you could also find a basket of Dum Dums. I'd find an empty chair and go to town on both. Afterwards, we might stop at the bakery next door, which had the best smiley face cookies and Elmo cupcakes, from which I still love their cake---they've moved, but still are thriving. A visit to the dry cleaners next to that (also recently closed after many years) might also be in order if Dad had shirts to pick up. It was always so goofy looking, that moving rack of shirts that went up and down and up again in a rotation.
And if you were real lucky, and it was lunchtime, there was that gold mine in the same shopping center: McDonalds!
One I got to college, I changed stylists for good. Some tragedy befell the family, some of which stopped the owner, my dad's stylist, from being able to work again, and Esther stopped cutting hair.
There are still a few more weeks left of my little salon's existence. Is it as nice as some of the modern ones? No...well, I think it is. It's what I've known since I started getting my hair cut. It's even been a featured location in my fictional dream world. Except in my dreams, the reception girl has Goth taste. (So you can imagine my surprise when one day I came in and the girl behind the desk actually was quite Gothic herself.)
Take time to appreciate a familiar locale today. As they say...hair today, gone tomorrow.
