Hair Apparent

We can learn as much from our hairdos as from our names or birth orders.

What’s in a name? My name is Judi informally. My given name is Judithe. No, not Judith. Judith-e. Judi-the. Judithe.

Dad said that at my birth, Mom spelled my name as Judithe. The truth is while I know many Judiths, I’ve never met another Judithe, and from Google know of just one other woman with that spelling.

A few months ago, I asked my mom why she spelled my name in that odd way.

“Judi, we’ve been over this dozens of times in as many years. I don’t know why I spelled your name Judithe. Maybe I liked you being different. Maybe your name looked pretty that way. Maybe I just didn’t know how to spell it,” Mom said, appearing to not to care which reason was central or true.

Then she added a breakthrough thought, “Well you never know, maybe your middle initial E ran together on the birth certificate and we all just accepted it as Judithe.”

“Geeeeez Mom! Now you’re blaming it on the Roseau Hospital nursing staff’s typing inadequacies? Really, don’t you remember how you planned to spell my name?” I asked.

“Give me a break,” my 92-year-old mother answered slightly dismissively. “Do you know how much they drugged us back then during childbirth? You’re lucky I knew which day you were born on.”

“Now wait a minute, and that’s another thing,” I said, wagging my index finger.

“Oh Judi,” Mom cut me off, knowing where the discussion was headed. “Who can blame me for not knowing whether you were born at 11:45 p.m. on the 20th or 12:15 a.m. on the 21st? It’s your own fault.”

“My fault?” I repeated incredulously.

“Yes, that’s right. Your fault. It was you who decided to bestow us with your arrival through my birth canal right around midnight. I was drugged remember?”

“But Mom, I was your first daughter,” I said, trying to drum up pity and assume my rightful “Marcia Brady” seat in the birth order thing.

“But third kid,” Mom countered quickly. “And there were five kids born after you in the next seven years. Judi, I was busy!”

“And don’t forget both you and the doctor thought I was twins,” I said, continuing to lament my inauspicious beginning.

“Can I help it if he was a country doctor and you were a breech baby? What can I say? He thought your butt was two heads. I swear, you’ve been beside yourself ever since I told you that story.”

Hmmmph.

Anyway. Judith originates from Hebrew, meaning woman from Judea, worthy of praise. But as you can see from above, it doesn’t ring true for me.

And it’s not just me. Remember Kristen Wiig in one of her Saturday Night Live Maheral Sisters skits, singing, “And I’m Judi, doot dat duh?” Or picture Judy Hensler, Beaver Cleaver’s female arch nemesis.

Enough with qualitative, here’s a quantitative data point. According to thebump.com, the name Judi hit a high in popularity around 1940 and went downhill from there. That’s right. Popular during WWII. Give me a break. Anything would be popular compared to a world war.

So, Judithe, the praised one? Not so much. Instead, I think you can learn about a person’s background and behaviors through her haircut.

Case in point. I give you one of my memories from 1961.

“Phyllis, you are too busy now to care for long hair on you or your girls,” Grandma Quigley advised Mom when Grandma and Grandpa Q arrived at our house from Blaine, Washington right after the birth of Larry, Mom and Dad’s fifth kid.

“Mom, we’re fine really,” my mom said as she blew at her own dark locks falling across her forehead while she burped the just fed Larry.

“I won’t take no for an answer. I’m taking Judi and Connie to get haircuts today. It’s the least I can do while I’m here helping you get settled with your new baby,” Grandma Q said as she patted Mom’s and Larry’s backs, and brushed Mom’s hair from her forehead.

With that, Connie and I traipsed out the front door, hand in hand with Grandma for a date with a neighborhood hair salon. It became an almost annual event for the next eight years when Grandma Q came into town.

“Oh my. Your Grandmother Quigley must have arrived,” Grandma Stoa said the next summer as she rubbed her fingers across my stubby bangs as if evaluating the bristles on a Fuller Brush.

I nodded affirmatively as I licked the sucker that Grandma Q's hairdresser had given me.

“Oh dear. I love your grandmother. She is a wonderful woman, but two can play at this game,” Grandma Stoa muttered.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Oh nothing. Go and play now. But wear a dress outside dearie so the neighbors know you’re a girl.”

That marked the moment my grandmothers entered the bilateral Stoa nuclear haircuts race of the 1960s.

Grandma Stoa who lived in town, began taking Connie and me over to Josef’s School of Hair Design in downtown Fargo where she instructed salon students to do their best with the latest fashions to outdo our Grandma Q dos. And if Grandma Stoa slipped up and didn’t get us into the salon before Grandma Q arrived, Grandma Q would clip the wings and anything else flapping on the heads of Connie and me each time she visited.

I remember when I got the Twiggy cut during one of my hair appointments with Grandma Stoa. Both she and I thought I rocked that look. I did not question the beauty of it until this summer when I found an old photograph which captured me and my Twiggy. In the photo, I stood behind my sisters Monica and Angie.

I smiled warmly at the old photo.

“Gosh, I was cute. Oh yeah, I guess they were cute too,” I thought.

I texted the photo to my sisters. In turn, Angie shared it with her husband Terry.

“Jeez, that’s weird,” Terry said.

“What? No! We were cute,” Angie countered.

“It's not that. It’s just that I thought Jon was the youngest in the family. Isn’t it weird how he towers over you and Monica in this shot?” Terry asked.

“You dope, that’s Judi,” Angie chided him.

“No waaaaay,” Terry bleated.

Hmmmph.

It was a little late in life to learn that regardless of which Grandma had me tailored and trimmed, I should have more often heeded Grandma Stoa's advice to wear a dress outside so people would know I was a girl.

In the 70s like most girls and boys, I first sported long hair with no bangs and then gradually moved to shorter hair overall, but with curled bangs that hovered heavily over my eyes.

I also jammed in the 1980s with permed big hair and gold highlights. Of course I modeled a business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back mullet or two during that decade.

But like most, I grew out of that fashion craze. At least I thought I did.

Over the years, I tried out a number of hair stylists in California, Colorado, and Minnesota. When I asked for their suggestions upon meeting me, they invariably said, “Well, I think we should get rid of that mullety-thing you have going on.”

“It’s not a mullet,” I’d exclaim each time. “I just like to pull my hair behind my ears.”

“Yeah. Okay,” they’d reply.

To counteract my counterculture inclinations, my current coiffeuse has topped me with an inverted bob for the last five years. I guess I’m okay with it. But really, isn’t an inverted bob, just a misdirected mullet?

Still, all things old are new again.

“Hey Judi. Have you noticed that mullets are making a comeback?” my sister asked me recently.

“No way,” I said, shocked by her head-turning news.

“Yeah, and really with your inverted bob, all you have to do is put your glasses on the back of your head and you are back in style baby!” my niece chimed in.

“You guys are funny.”

My parting life lesson?

Your hair style screams more loudly and clearly about you and your family background than your name or birth order. Even so, don't get hung up on whether you adorn yourself with a buzz, twiggy cut, mullet, inverted bob, or something else. Although it will have to be shear dumb luck, you and your hair can grow from your mistakes over time.

Judi Stoa’s Donchyaknow Life Lessons to see and bring out the best in yourself and others.

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Website: Judi Stoa Books

Blog: Donchyaknow Life Lessons