Never thought I'd do this again!

Yep, what goes around comes around! Never thought I'd EVER tease hair again! It was all the rage when I was a teenager and in my early 20's, and here I am - teasing my daughter's hair for a Halloween party!

Another word for this antiquated practice is "ratting." When I told my good friend Emma that my daughter wanted me to tease her hair for a Halloween costume, Emma said, "Do you need a ratting comb??" Maybe I should have borrowed one, if she had it, because I discovered that my husband's old fine-toothed comb just didn't get it! Either that, or I had lost the knack! (Horrors!)

Back in the era of the "Big Hair," we were all adept at ratting our hair up into impossible heights. The procedure was pain-staking: 1) Wash your hair, 2) towel-dry it, 3) Put Dippity Do on it, 4) Set it on big orange juice cans (or later - on brush rollers - ouch!), 5) Sit under a dryer, if you were fortunate to have one, or leave your head up in rollers all night. If you had to run to the grocery store, tie a scarf around your curlers and go! 6) Take the rollers out when the hair was dry, 7) Brush it out, 8) TEASE IT up so you looked like the Bride of Frankenstein, and finally, 9) Smooth it out so it hopefully didn't look like a RAT'S NEST!!

WHEW! Does it make you as tired as it does me??? How did we have the time to do that???

Nowadays (as you can see from my Robin-Hood-simple haircut above), I just wash, dry with a hand-held blow dryer, and head out the door!!! Ten minutes, tops! Hahaha!

My, how the times have changed!

Still, it was interesting to see my daughter's reaction to her June Carter Cash hairdo and flouncy fifties dress (which she rented from a shop in Memphis).

"You know, Mom, I can see why you girls liked this hairdo! It's cute!" she said. Of course, back "in the day," we never had an electric flattening iron to flip it up like she did. That takes all the work out of it!

And, as for the dress, she LOVED it. Of course, when I sent a photo to my sister-in-law in Cape, she said, "Tell her she needs more can-cans! It should stand straight out."

Oh, yeah, I remember those can-cans! The more, the better! I'll tell you a secret to show you how obsessed we were with can-cans. (Shhhhhh...don't tell anybody!!) After all these years, I can still remember a beautiful can-can that my classmate, Pam (Weber) Turlington had: It was white, not very full (delicate and tasteful, as all her clothes were), and it had rainbow piping around the hem! I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, when that little bit of color showed under the hem of her dress!

Well, well...Halloween was always a magic time for me, when my kids were home. Now they've gone off into their own lives, but what a delight it is, when they come back for a trip down memory lane!

This weekend I'll get to see my two-year old grandson Evan dressed in the homemade squirrel costume that his creative mama Laura made for him. My sister is coming in from Springfield today, and we'll go take Halloween pictures for the paper and help with the Methodist Bazaar...

Life is good, and this fall season is golden. I wish I could bottle it up and hold it forever...

From the brilliant hills of Tillman, this is your roving reporter, Madeline, reminiscing in the cool of an autumn morning...