Woman in the Locker Room by Maggie Holeman

Author:Maggie Holeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publication Consultants

Chapter Sixteen

1963

Junior High School brought on a whole new challenge. The first day of school, I wore pants, knowing that girls were supposed to wear dresses—a rule to be broken, scrutinized, demolished. The teacher told me not to come back the next day wearing pants.

My defiance had begun to develop.

I loved my blue wide-corduroys and proudly pranced around in them on the second day of school. I was nervous about my rebellion but stood firm in my belief that wearing skirts was the stupidest thing girls had to do here in Alaska.

I was released from school. “Don’t come back,” the principal told me, “until you understand the rules.”

1979

My natural curls either had to be cut in a man’s hairstyle, or grown out long enough to pin up off my uniform collar. My distain for this policy put me on the brink of insubordination.

Captain Grant was specific about how my hair should look – though I never received it in writing, and the never-ending warnings from various supervisors didn’t keep me from continuously pushing to find the limit.

I’d pin up my hair for a while, then let it creep down below my collar, lower than allowed. Besides, pulling back my curly hair was almost impossible.

It’s not that I never tried to conform. I did. I pulled all of my hair up and away from my face, above my collar into a “puff-ball” on top of my head. Shorter pieces of hair popped out all over as each strand of curl took pride in its individuality. I looked like a scarecrow, with wayward strands.

One evening, as I was approaching the patrol car for night shift duty, Lieutenant Corey called out, “Maggie, hold on.”

I reluctantly turned.

“You can’t wear your hair like that. Someone could grab your ponytail. You need to fix that before you go on patrol.”

It was too short to be a ponytail. “Right,” I said and turned away. This is crazy!

The following morning, I called a beauty parlor and made an appointment for a hairstyle. Following my insubordinate reaction to Lt. Corey’s request that pulling my entire bush of curls into a puff ball wasn’t enough to adhere to current hair standards, I received a written reprimand from Captain Grant. Along with the diagram of a man with a military haircut and mustache and sideburns, I was told, “Adhere to these standards.”

Working the swing shift, I didn’t report for duty until 4 p.m. My hair appointment was at noon so I had plenty of time to get the right hairstyle before my shift began.

I told the beautician, “This hairstyle needs to be above my collar, and I need to be able to get my hair underneath this hat.” I handed her my Stetson. “I can’t have sideburns below my earlobes.”

She was innovative. “We could do ringlets, bring it up above your collar. Since your hair is naturally curly, we’ll put ringlets in front of your ear. I’ll make it above the earlobe, no problem.”

I agreed. In the 1970s, ringlets were in again, forty years after Shirley Temple had ringlets.

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