In the Olden Days....

I love the Internet. I think it is our generation's discovery equivalent of electricity or the telephone. Life before it, is already almost unimaginable. All the stuff we relied on before, Encyclopedia's, dictionaries, even the Yellow Pages, are nearly obsolete. We neatly point and click our way through news, history, trivia and endless shopping possibilities.

There are other obsolete objects...Smithsonian ready Sunbeam Hairdryers, (hard hat or bonnet), for example...Writing this blog as not only jogged my memories, but friends as well. My pal Carol, reminded me of our hardship years, pre blow dryer! I can't speak for all of the country, but I am fairly certain, that every Jewish girl in the tri-state area, devoted countless hours trying to achieve straight hair. There were two methods. The first was "wrapping", which consisted of using one's own cranium as the base to swaddle and anchor ones mane, followed by a good 2 hour bake under the dryer. The other was the O.J. can method. Two dried and hollowed O.J.(from concentrate), cans would be divided like rabbit ears from a top knot and affixed to the top of your head, also requiring a slow roast. For important occasions, one would sleep in said ears, to insure silky straightness in the morning, (hopefully without dreaded ridges). If I had a daughter, I would not doubt be boring her with these tales as I drove her to her pre Bat Mitzvah blow outs...

In my haste to dispense of the O.J. cans, I started brushing my hair into a top knot at my forehead, with a rubber band, twirling it into a bun and soldering it with pins. I stayed this way for all waking hours except for school. The first time I sat down to the dinner table like this, my father asked my mother, "why does our child look like Denny Dimwit"? My sister Loren, (who with her naturally straight locks looked like a cheongsammed Geisha), thought this was particularly amusing...From that day forward, my "do" was known as "the Dimwit". The undeniable thing about the Dimwit, was it's effectiveness. When I would dismantle it in the morning, my hair was not only straight, but bouncy straight!

Out of compassion, I retired the Dimwit for 20 years...until last night. Surely, my husband has seen me look worse. (Child birth? Post surgery)? But I couldn't wait till this morning for the results, which were, you guessed it... bouncy straight hair!

Which brings me full circle to the Internet. On a lark, I web search "Denny Dimwit" and up he popped! (Jeez, now I want to Google him). Denny was a simpleton comic strip character, whose triangulated head, was adorned with a tiny knit cap! Who knew??? There really was a Denny Dimwit!!! Now I just have to figure out if my husband is going to sleep with him again tonight...Is it so bad, as long as he gets to wake up with the Breck Girl in the morning?

What to you think???

xox,
Dd