Public Relations!

For those of you who do not know me personally, I dye my hair. Oh yes, this blog is going to be full of bombshells! Anyway, I’ve been dying it since I was 25. I found my first gray hair at 19 and I was 50/50 salt and pepper when I was 25. Ugh, I inherited my Mom’s genes. Every male on her side of the family went totally gray by 30...and I’m another.

Sure, it was out of vanity I started coloring it. At 25, you aren’t supposed to look old at that age. Back then, I used to hang out quite often by the beach near Paddy’s in Misquamicut. Having gray hair very nearly gets you “banned from the beach!”

There is racism against everything. The biases out there are against overweight people, too thin people, where you live is another, what your job may be. Judgment is a constant occurrence and it can change hour to hour. And to tell the truth, I engage in too. You can’t help to size someone up the first time you meet them. Also, your decisions on people you know change as your perception of them changes. The problem with those appraisals is that they may be totally unfair and negative.

“Put your best foot forward!” I heard that one as a kid from my Dad, but he was keenly aware of it all due to his occupation.

I’ve said to those who know me that I don’t dye it for them, I color it for people who don’t know me. You’d be very surprised at how the public treats you if your hair is gray or not.

There are times when I let months go by when I don’t dye it. It gets annoying to lather that goo in as it gets all over everything…and dyes everything else too. The walls, floor, towels and my shirt get to be Clairol #14 as well.

One time at Home Depot several years ago, I had bought two fence panels to fix my fence. My German Shepherd was large enough to gallop and crash through the rotted sections to the rat-dog in my neighbor’s yard. I did not want to explain to the little kids who lived there why my dog ate theirs.

Out in the Home Depot parking lot, I had an easy time sliding the first fence panel onto the roof of my Mazda. The roof was nice and metallic slick. The second panel didn’t go so well. Wood on wood doesn’t slide to well. I was man handling it into place when out of the corner of my eye I see and hear a young man running towards me saying: “Sir! Sir! Let me do that! I can get that up there!”

I stood back as the kid shoved the panel up into place. Now my hair at the time was longish and quite white. I surmised he thought I was far too old to be moving fence panels around. That explains the “Sir” I was hearing. He seemed proud of himself helping me out and I thanked him.

I thought to myself, “Wow, it’s happening once more, I’m 68 again.”

So, at 25, I colored it to keep those too early genes from expressing themselves. I was 25, not “old.” Now, I do it to keep from being judged ready for the old folks home.