Thursday, December 28, 2006

A "Hairy" Story

If you've watched WLBT for the last few months, you know I am growing my hair for women who have lost their hair due to cancer through Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program. Today I received a neat email from a viewer who came across some hair which has been in his family for a LONG time. He wanted to offer me the hair to donate. He doesn't know if the hair was his mother's or his older sister's. I asked him to share the story with me as to how he got it.Here is his email, which I found intriguing.
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All I know is that I come from a long line of packrats. My mother saved stuff such as the announcement of the Dionne Quints, and the Duke of York - Wally Simpson affair of the 1930s. I have her wedding dress (1919) including, I believe, her underwear or something much like that. (Beautiful, all hand sewn). Her shoes. Gloves. And just tons of other stuff various and sundry.

Mother died in '41 when I was 15, which is why I am uncertain. In any case my sister, four years older, for various reasons got all that stuff. Oh yes - the letters Pop wrote my mother from France during WW I, perhaps a hundred of them, some hilarious and some winsome.

As I say - Betsy had all that stuff in her attics, mostly in the arid west, all of these years. She died about three years ago, and her kids went through it all and sent such stuff to me. So what am I to do with it? I would happily give the wedding dress to an appropriate institution, etc., and in fact have sent copies of some of the letters to the Chattanooga Museum, where she (my Mom) was living during WW I.

Ah yes. The hair. I am uncertain if it was Betsy's or Mother's. It has a sort of reddish tint, but my childhood recollection of Betsy's hair was more plain brunette. On the other hand, pack-rat or not, I have a hard time believing Mother would have kept her own hair. According to her wedding (tinted) photo and some other lore, she may have had a slight reddish cast. We'll never know. But it should please everybody - most of all Betsy and Mother - if that hair can be used.

Continue the good work. Continue to be the best of the weather mavens. Continue to call a drought "a drought" (and to hell with the athletic activities when we need rain). Continue to NOT try to scare people like some of the others, particularly at the stud station where you used to work!


Sincerely,
Jim K.


1 comment:

lsimpson1@jam.rr.com said...

where do i sign up to donate hair to for cancer.