Contemplating the gloomy skies outside my window this morning, I’m wondering if the weather’s going to force the cancellation of the events planned for today.
There’s a yard sale for the River and Roots Community Garden, a yard sale at Hallockville and an antique fair on the riverfront, sponsored by the Riverhead BID. There’s also a car wash at Mercy, to raise money for a drinking water well in an African village and a chicken BBQ.
My personal agenda this morning includes a long-overdue haircut. Linda Langhorn sent me a message via my daughter Katie on Memorial Day: “It’s time.”
I’ve got to be the worst customer ever from a hairstylist’s point of view. I show up infrequently, can’t sit still long enough for her to dry and style my hair after the cut, run my hand through it when she’s done and have one requirement: it’s got to be wash, towel dry and go. Yep, I’m impossible. But Linda is incredibly patient.
No one else has given me a haircut since 1985 — except Laura Freeborn, Linda’s faithful sidekick, once when Linda was sick.
Linda styled my hair the morning of my wedding. For that occasion, Laura gave me one of the two professional manicures I’ve ever had. And they served me a scotch on the rocks that day to calm my nerves. The shop wasn’t even open that day.
Linda and Laura gave my daughters their first haircuts, and continued cutting their hair (with the girls sitting on a board placed across the arms of the chair when they were too little to sit in the chair itself) until the girls became teenagers and decided the little shop in a converted garage attached to Linda’s house wasn’t cool enough for them. The ladies were so sweet and so loving toward my girls, the kids grew up thinking we were related. (Seriously.)
My mom, who also got her haircuts at Kountry Kutters, lobbied Linda for years to talk me into coloring my gray hair. The gray really bothered my mom, who passed on that particular gene. Linda tried and once even succeeded. But it just wasn’t for me. Too much upkeep for me. My gray roots were always exposed, skunk-like.
When my mom got sick, diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in 2004, Linda insisted on coming to Mom’s condo to cut and style her hair. The last picture I have of Mom was after that haircut, when she put on a little makeup and allowed me to take a picture. She looks so drawn and sick, but still so pretty. Linda, of course, wouldn’t take a penny for the home visit. It was something she did out of love.
I knew my mom was dying when her own gray hair began to show at the roots and she didn’t care. Now it was my turn to be bothered by gray. I impulsively colored mine and tried to talk her into coloring hers. She refused. I remember her sitting in that recliner chair that she spent all her time in toward the end, looking at me with my dyed hair and laughing and shaking her head.
These days, Linda tries to pretend she likes my gray hair. But I can tell she’s faking. She’s a very bad liar. That’s one of the things I love about her.
Denise Civiletti, reporter, editor, digital maven and former newspaper editor and publisher, lives and works in Riverhead. She vaguely remembers having a life away from electronic gadgets before being consumed by her role as a digital-hyperlocal-news-entrepreneur-pioneer — lol— publishing RiverheadLocal.com with her husband Peter Blasl.
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