Monday, 08 March 2010
Aging Groomers
By Gail Title who blogs at Hot Coffee and Cool Jazz
Who of my generation can't remember John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Worker's Union and his amazing eyebrows? In my childhood his face and those eyebrows appeared so often in the newspapers that their image is imprinted on my brain.
Obviously I didn't know much about the fellow, since I was only an elementary school kid during the 1940s when Lewis was active in news-making. But I'm sure the only reason I remembered him is because of his eyebrows, long and hairy and undisciplined and apparently untended.
Now all this is to say that I looked in the mirror this morning upon arising and saw again that indeed I myself was growing such eyebrows. Oh, I try to keep them under control, snipping here, plucking there, combing, gelling, brushing, all accompanied by great gnashing of teeth as I wonder why in my old age I have to be going bald but yet growing John L. Lewis eyebrows in spite of my best ministrations!
And just for the record, since I know you will want to know this, my eyebrows refuse to turn grey like my hair. No, black is the color of my aged brows, which wasn't the color of my own hair even in its heyday. Mousy brown, I was then, with mousy brown eyebrows to boot.
There are just things about aging that I don't understand. I won't go into detail about chin hairs, which I used to be able to cajole my lovely teen-aged daughters into plucking out for me. Now my presbyopic eyes can't even see them anymore, although my arthritic fingers can feel them. Oh dear, so many things to tame as we get of an age.
The last thing I share about my eyebrows is that when I was probably in my early thirties I had a small growth in one. The doctor made a tiny little slit to remove a cyst or whatever it was. This doc was a surgeon and when I asked him if I was going to have a big gap in the hair of my eyebrow he said no one would ever know that anything had been removed. "I am a good surgeon," he said huffily. "You will have no problems." He threw in a tiny little stitch and I healed easily.
Well, I am sure the doctor would be able to remember his handiwork now (assuming I could remember who he was) if I sent him a picture of my left eyebrow vertically ruptured in the middle with a neat but totally hairless white gap that refuses to accept eyebrow pencil color. The only thing mitigating this catastrophe is that this scar almost matches the vertical scar I have on the bridge of my nose from a cat's claw, but that’s another story altogether.
Ah well, there are no beauty pageants to worry about, or finding spouses, or being photogenic - all those things that cause consternation when one is young and upcoming. To that extent, age may be a blessing but it is still a pain in the patoot most of the time. And who wants John L. Lewis eyebrows at any age?
So I do what I can do - snip, comb, pluck, gel, brush - and figure that at least I am alive to face another day, eyebrows and all.
[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Instructions for submitting are here.]
Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post
Comments
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Tee-hee . . . I just love those lovely chin hairs which I remember plucking from my grandmother's chin oh so many years ago, and now must pluck from my own. See, God knows what he's doing. He dims our eyesight as we grow older so we can't see all those flaws. Problem is, we invented magnifying glass and voila! there they are: those little reminders that we are not 25 anymore.
Thank God for a sense of humor, which He must have in abundance!
Posted by: Guitar Grandma | Monday, 08 March 2010 at 05:34 AM
Old enough to remember John L. Lewis, vintage l94l..in nyc, we had an "O'Dwyer" in politics who also had those "roaming" brows..it is so nice at our present ages, we talk openly about
chin hairs, facial mishaps, too bad we couldn't mainline these discussions to young teens..we always felt we were the only ones who fretted about acne, and other painfull growing up "afflictions" all by ourselves..only later at 50th hs reunions do we find we were pretty much all at home vowing never to go out again til we were "older." Who said: "too old we get smart." Great writing..Mary Follett
Posted by: mary follett | Monday, 08 March 2010 at 06:05 AM
Thanks Gail! I'm fwding this to my daughter so that she will know that I'm not the only one with a'foo-manchu' mustache & hairs on my chin-y-chin-chin!
Posted by: Flo Anrud | Monday, 08 March 2010 at 07:01 AM
"...all those things that cause consternation when one is young and upcoming. To that extent, age may be a blessing but it is still a pain in the patoot most of the time. And who wants John L. Lewis eyebrows at any age?...
I raise a tentative hand! I lost my eyebrows (and much of my facial expression) with the onset of hypothyroidism. I miss them! Thank you for this post, Gail! I laughed at how we keep ourselves together with humor! Lovely to read today...[and I'm using the word "patoot" at least three times today to impress my student workers. That word is tops and not used enough!]
Posted by: Cile | Monday, 08 March 2010 at 11:38 AM
I am delighted to meet your writing today, and read your blogs --funny and astute! We are peers, including the chin hairs. On Feb. 24,an essay of mine called My Life With the Chickens was printed here, in which I tell of a childhood accident that garnered me a small scar in my eyebrow--not as dramatic as yours, evidently. I have to really look to find it
Posted by: Lyn Burnstine | Monday, 08 March 2010 at 02:33 PM
When I found this website I said to myself, "Those are my people!" So I feel at home with you already.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and comments. If all this wasn't really fun, we wouldn't be doing it, would we?
Posted by: Gail Title | Monday, 08 March 2010 at 03:26 PM