Growing up Ginger

When I was ten years-old my greatest fear was that my hair would turn pink when I got old.  It never occurred to me that women dyed their hair that color . . . on purpose!  I assumed that I was genetically predetermined to have pink hair when I was old and I hated pink!  I wasn’t sure what had happened to the women with light blue hair.  I think I worried about having pink hair for two years before I confided my fears to someone who assured me that it wasn’t a natural color and probably endemic to Idaho.

I like having red hair.  Although, when I was young I was teased for it.  My mom told me I came home crying one day that “they called me tomato head!”  I don’t remember it.  It was probably so traumatic that I blocked it out.  Perhaps if I went to counseling I could remember it.

When I started Junior High people started complementing me on my hair color.  Which I liked.  What I didn’t like were the accompanying freckles.  I have found in my vast experience that the only people who like freckles are the non-spotted people.  I remember it was agonizing not to be able to tan in the 80s.  Since it was before skin cancer, everyone was a sun worshipper then.  And I did not tan.  I reddened and freckled.  When I was sixteen I had the brilliant idea that if I got enough freckles they would blend together and I would look tan.  That was not my brightest moment.  I seriously have to repeat that statement.  THIS WILL NOT WORK!  And if anyone is tempted to try it I can assure you that this will result in massive freckling.  You won’t look remotely tan.  You will end up looking like a fool who spend the summer trying to get spots everywhere!  It’s better to stay blindingly white.  Because you will spend the next three years wearing a burka while your freckles fade.

But there is a dark side to red hair.  Yes, that would be the blond eyelashes and eyebrows.  Unless I wear makeup I don’t look like I have any.  And worse yet, there is no guarantee that your children will have red hair.  I only have one out of four.  My brother has zero out of three.  Two of my sisters however, brunettes mind you, have a lot with red hair.  It’s as if they were jealous and stole the red hair from me and my brother.  One of them has two with red hair and the other has about five.  Honestly, I don’t know how my brother deals with it.  I would have switched one of my kids for a redheaded one.