Going Natural

 

After years of coloring my hair (which sounds much better than saying dying) I am letting my hair go back to its natural color. At this point I’m not sure what color that will turn out to be but I feel pretty safe in saying it won’t be the light brown color that my hair was when the coloring started. Let me make myself clear, I did not want to start coloring my hair. My husband was the one who wanted me to cover the gray streaks that began appearing ten or fifteen, I can’t remember, years ago. He became involved in the process; he has been my colorist for about all of that time. He did a very good job. I told him once we started coloring my hair, we were stuck doing it. There was no going back.

Well, I was wrong. The time to stop coloring my hair has arrived, or I think it has. Letting the color grow out of your hair is a process. I am living through that process right now. Presently my hair is several shades of color from dark to light. Since my hair is short anyway it shouldn’t take too much longer to cut the fake color out and be natural. Letting my hair go back to its natural color was not an idea I came up on my own. A friend of mine told me last fall that she had stopped coloring her hair. My first reaction was not me, nope; I’m not ready for that yet. The idea grew on me. I guess I needed time to adjust to the idea.

This blog is the first time I’ve told more than like five people about my hair issue. Sometimes I wonder if people I see regularly have noticed my multi-color hair. Do I think the color is more noticeable than it really is or are my friends being too polite to say anything? The last time I got my hair cut one of the other hairdressers said she had a client letting her hair go natural. All the color can’t be cut out at one time unless you want to shave your head. I’m not ready to go that far. It is kind of freeing not to have to schedule the time to color your hair. Life made simpler.

A couple of more haircuts and my hair will be its natural color. It will be interesting to see what color that turns out to be. If I am not happy with whatever the color natural is, I can always go back to the coloring. The way things stand now, I don’t think I’ll do that but you never know. Comfort and simplicity dictates my fashion sense now. I leave being cool to the younger folks. That time has passed for me and I’m fine with that. I like not having to worry about keeping up with the latest trends. Just being who I am. All because of the color of my hair.

New Year’s with The King

I get blog alerts about Elvis Presley. This year on New Year’s Eve, a lot of the blogs made mention of Elvis having done three concerts on New Year’s Eve during his career. The first was in 1955, the second in 1975, and the third in 1976. I went to two of these concerts. Now I’m getting some years on me but even I was too young to attend any concert in 1955. I did make it to the two New Year’s Eve shows Elvis performed in the 1970s. 

The first one was in Pontiac, Michigan in 1975. That was the first time this Southern gal went up North. Life going on normally with snow on the ground was a very new experience for me. The South closes down as the first snow flake drifts from the sky, having gone to the grocery to lay in a supply of milk and bread.

Elvis performed in the then new Silverdome football stadium.  My husband had called RCA, Elvis’ record company and talked some rep into getting us eleventh row tickets. They turned out to be good seats. A floor on the football field with a very high stage in the middle, made people in closer seats unable to see Elvis. It was very cold on the field -forty degrees.

Not only was it cold on the field but the stage was cold too. The band and back-up singers wore coats. Elvis was rumored to be unhappy with the stage because he was far away from the back-up singers. The stage was two tiered with the singers and some of the band being above Elvis.  At one point Elvis had to leave the stage to change jumpsuits. He ripped the seat out of the first jumpsuit.

One thing stands out in my mind about that concert. Elvis was known for giving scarves to fans during shows. The Pontiac show had a twist. Elvis couldn’t hand the scarves to people in the audience as he usually did. The stage was too high. To get the scarves out into the audience, Elvis tied knots in them and threw them as hard as he could. I can remember the scarves making a whooshing sound as they whizzed by my head.

The Pontiac show finished abruptly. A couple of days later, the newspapers reported that a man had threatened to shoot Elvis. Leaving the stadium, I thought I had been to a very special concert because I thought Elvis wouldn’t play another show on New Year’s Eve. I was wrong. He did perform again the next year on New Year’s Eve in Pittsburgh, PA. I attended that show too. What wonderful memories I have of both times I spent New Year’s Eve with Elvis.