Love Bug

The summer before I entered high school my parents went to New Orleans on a couple’s vacation—meaning none of us three kids accompanied them—and they returned in a matador red 1960 Volkswagen convertible with a tan rag top and tan interior. Anyone who attended Huntsville High School during the 1960s remembers that snappy little foreign car. She was the first VW to appear in my hometown, and made quite an impression on the townsfolk.

I learned to drive in that car, with its stick shift and rear engine. Like many classmates, I took driver’s education from Coach Lewis and got my license when I was fourteen years old. The Volkswagen was like riding around in a pregnant roller-skate. But my, oh my, what great mileage it got! With gas at 29.9 cents per gallon, we could drive around all night—even travel to the next town and home again—for less than a dollar.

My older brother was seventeen when my folks brought home that red bug. He was dating the newspaper editor’s daughter and the first time Stone drove the convertible over to pick her up for a date, her father wanted to know what he was doing in one of Hitler’s cars, asked him if we’d become communists.

The scariest and most exhilarating time in the car had to be the night my younger brother played car tag with his friends. Eight of us were crammed in that little bug with its top down—two in the front seats, three in the backseat and three of us sitting across the back and hanging on for dear life by grabbing the canvas convertible top. Mark easily drove 40-50 mph, careening down side streets through dark neighborhoods, twice dousing the headlights, trying to escape our pursuers. I have no idea what would have happened if we’d been caught, either by the other kids in their cars or by the local police, but I believe we are lucky to have lived to tell the tale.

My brothers taught me how to disconnect the speedometer cables so our parents wouldn’t know I drove to Trinity to buy beer, or to Conroe to see a boyfriend, or to the rock quarry to swim in the moonlight. Most of the time, though, I parked that sweet ride at the Tastee Freeze where my girlfriends and I drank Cokes and flirted with boys who cruised by real slow.

Both brothers and I drove that car throughout our high school years, and I took it to Austin for the semester my dad sent me to University of Texas to experience Southwest Conference football. By then, first gear didn’t work anymore, so uphill streets with stop signs had to be avoided. (I learned that lesson the hard way.)

When I got out of college, the first car I bought was a Volkswagen. An air-conditioned 1967 Beetle, it cost around $1,800. I was teaching at Spring Woods High School in Houston, and my students placed a TIGERPOWER bumper-sticker across the back. Following that, I owned several other Volkswagens, including two VW buses, but my favorite was that 1960 convertible. I was sad when the last Beetle rolled off the Puebla, Mexico, assembly line in the summer of 2003. The end of a groovy era.

Now, I drive a Mini Cooper.

Red

My adventures as a redhead, no matter what hue, illustrate the personas I tried as I grew into womanhood. The color, the length, and the style reflected my mood, my outlook, my perception of my place in the world.

I became a redhead the summer between junior high and high school, thanks to Miss Clairol. Born Irish-American I had the peaches and cream complexion of a redhead, even had a splatter of freckles scattered across my nose, but my mother's genes from her luscious dark brunette hair mixed with those Irish genes of my dad's and the combination resulted in a mousy bland brown on my head.

That all changed in 1960. In less than an hour I became a reddish blonde.

I stayed that way for the summer, but I quickly selected more exotics reds as I moved through high school and college: Coppertone, Sparkling Sherry, Red Ginger. Oh, how I loved those rich, vibrant colors. If I were meeting  you for the first time, I didn't have to describe what I'd be wearing. Instead I'd say, "I'm a redhead." And sure enough, you could pick me from the crowd. Being a redhead was bold.

When I graduated from college and started working as a journalist, I changed from Clairol to L'Oreal. It cost about a dime more, but as the commercial said, I was worth it. It was the sixties and I was feeling the feminist stirrings of self worth. Of course, in Texas, that meant Big Hair--and the attitude to go with it. Bold became bodacious.

The length and style changed over the years as well. I wore it shoulder length. I wore it in a French twist. I wore it in a ponytail. I cut it short and spiked it with hair product. I grew it into a classic bob. I adorned my hair with turquoise burettes, silver clips, velvet headbands, fresh flowers, and braided leather. My hair was silky and thick, with a natural curl that I hated in my teens and twenties but embraced from my thirties and beyond.

For fifty years, until my hair turned so gray that the auburn dye faded too quickly, I lived life as a dramatic redhead.

Truth is, I felt unsure and insecure at many stages in my life, always thinking I needed five points added to my IQ and ten pounds deducted from my weight. So I hid behind fiery bravado. In essence, color from a bottle transformed me from blah brown to radiant red; it was an affordable and immediate transformation. I might be quaking inside but my exterior shouted brassy and sassy. It was the narrative I was writing for myself and eventually I became the character of my own invention. With each new chapter in my life, when it came time to reinvent myself, the color red was always a part of the ritual.


What is the story of your hair? How has your crowning glory changed through the years?