You never know where your inspiration is going to come from. Albeit a can of soda, a good friend, or a container of tomato paste. At a graduation party this summer, reminiscing with a few gals, I decided to do a ‘Vintage” series. And you know girls, we were all giddy over the intuitive ways we curled, straitened, ironed, kinked, twisted, sprayed, poofed, and teased our hair.
Did you know some girls used soda cans for lift, and curl? While others had an excess of Tomato Paste in their pantries.

That evening, while talking to my *almost* 95 year old Grandma, I told her of my series to be. I asked her about old fashioned hair-do techniques and “tools” she may have used. Well- she followed with this gem of a story:
We rented a house from the coal mine, one of those row houses. One day I said to Eleanor (my neighbor and friend) ”I came across these in the cellar, the previous renter must have left them behind.” They were cylindrical, and had a perfect little clip. They would work perfectly for our hair! I rolled Eleanors hair, and she rolled mine. She went home to her chores, and I stayed to do mine.
When my husband came home from work I met him at the door and He exclaimed “OH VIOLET!” ”What’s in your hair?!” and “Get them out, get them out, get them OUT!” Followed by “Where did you get those?!!!!!”
I explained ”Glenn, I found them in the cellar, they work perfectly for my hair. ” He preceded to tell me in a panic, what I had in my locks, was actually BLASTING CAPS the coal mine used to ignite dynamite! Then I explained that Eleanor also had a head full of blasting caps- he must MUST go tell her too.
Gingerly I unrolled, every last “curler”. Eleanor’s husband stopped her from throwing hers in the wood stove. They were returned to the coal mine and nobody was hurt.
I got the best laugh out of this.. although Gram said this is the first time she actually laughed about it. It only took over 60yrs but she finally did laugh.

Grandma never thought this story would be re-told. But lo and behold, here it is. I decided I can’t really use blasting caps, for visual purposes, but i did manage to get a few tomato paste curlers.
I think this is by far the funniest story gram ever told me… I also wonder if Lucy was inspired by Violet?
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