Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

During my 34 year career of working at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, I’ve met many women as workmates; some came and went quickly, while others were a long time part of the institution. Each of these women had their own unique style and ways of doing things. I guess their hair color and style were just one of their lives stuck out as something for me to remember.

One of the older women, who volunteered wore what I call a helmet head. It wasn’t the bee hive look or a bouffant style. She had rows and rows of tight curls that looked as though her hair was still wrapped around thin curlers and hadn’t been brushed out at all. It wasn’t braided like cornrows, but had a very similar look. Her curls covered her head in long rows that swirled and reminded me of miniature horns that graced the sides of the St. Louis Ram’s helmets.

There was another blonde woman who was older as well. She still wore a “beehive” hairdo. Her blonde hair was piled high on her head. It was fluffed out like yellow cotton candy and was sprayed to within an inch of its life with a heavy lacquer coating of hair spray. Even if she would have gotten caught in hurricane winds, that hair was not going anywhere. It was as fixed and as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Another hair style that I remember was worn by one of our older nursing assistants. Actually to call it a style would be a huge misrepresentation. She had dishwater blonde hair that looked as though a farmer had tried to create a hay stack on her head and failed miserably. It wasn’t just a bad hair day or on occasion, but her messy looking coiffure was askew each and every day that she worked.

The array of hair colors for the women ranged from a basic ebony to bright henna; from sliver gray to a platinum blonde. Straight hair or curly, short hair or long hair the styles were as varied as the women with whom I worked and their personalities.

The final hairdo I’ll mention is that of a ward clerk who had thinning hair. She would poof it out and lift it to give her hair volume, but that was not what attracted my attention. It was the color that she would dye it. Her own natural brown pigmentation was completely changed to a deeply intense burgundy color. Her pale skin only highlighted the unnatural hue.