Connections: Curl Power

Clichés are usually based on matters of common knowledge, so there has got to be at least some truth in the often heard idea that people revert to childhood as they age. Right? I’m sure this doesn’t pertain to me — at least not yet — but I’m keeping watch.

I celebrated one of those birthdays this week that people consider a milestone, and I am afraid there’s no hiding my age anymore. Besides, I’ve decided, if people don’t know my age, how can they tell me I don’t look it?

But on Sunday, when friends and family arrived for a backyard party, I realized that I had in fact reverted to childhood in at least one funny way: There was an unintended little curl right in the middle of my forehead. Oh dear, I could almost hear my mother saying:

There was a little girl,

And she had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good

She was very, very good,        

And when she was bad she was horrid.

The best thing I can say about this memory is that the words are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s. My mother recited them often, and I still don’t know to this day whether she was in earnest or in jest about the “horrid” part.

Growing up, I fought those curls. I went from wearing my hair in what we called a pageboy to smoothing out my curls by pulling my hair straight back. It wasn’t until it could be said that I was moving out of middle age that I started liking and encouraging them. I even had my hair cut for a while in New York City at a place famous for the encouragement and pampering of curls, curls, curls. 

Now any hope I might still have had of keeping my age a secret has been all but dashed. Longtime readers of The Star know that from time to time we publish sly birthday greetings: Someone brings in a childhood photo as a birthday surprise for a friend or relative and it is run with phrases like “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s 40” or “Nifty, Nifty, Look Who’s 50.” So it was that a photo of a child of about 3 appeared in last week’s issue, accompanied by a different rhyme:

Don’t be sad,  

Don’t be blue, 

Brigitte Bardot is your age, too.

This little ditty was a collaboration among my husband, who found the photo, and a number of people on the staff, who helped refine the message. Not all readers would have thought much lately about Brigitte Bardot and, even if they did, it was unlikely they would know how old she was. Of course, if readers out there cared to know, all they would have to do was go to Google. It turns out that Ms. Bardot was born one day before me. 

But there was a little problem. I laughed out loud when I saw the ad, and the collaborators roared with laughter when I told them that the cute little kid in the photo was my brother.