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Aunt Freda's PERMANENT

Since my toddler days I have been fascinated with words new to me----what they mean and how they are used. I remember exactly where I was and who I was with when I heard such words as reluctant, inhibited, and circumstantial for the first time. I was a little six year old girl, living on our family farm in Roane County when I overheard someone say that my Aunt Freda had saved enough money to go to Spencer and pay for a 'permanent,' a word I'd not heard before. I mulled it over for several days and finally asked Mom what it meant. "The word 'permanent' means something that lasts forever," she explained.

Hmmmm . . . I thought to myself. My Aunt Freda is going all the way to Spencer to get something that lasts forever. Still puzzled, I finagled a ride along with several other relatives so I could see just what a 'permanent' was. On Saturday morning Uncle Ray came with his pickup truck. We hopped in; he and Aunt Gwen in the front seat and Aunt Freda, Uncle Rex and I in the back. When we arrived in Spencer, my Uncle Rex and Uncle Ray, took off by themselves, leaving Freda, Gwen and me at the beauty shop.

Gwen and I watched Aunt Freda began her 3 hour ordeal of "getting a permanent." "It'll make her hair curly," the beautician named Mrs. Miller, commented. Since my hair was stick-straight, I watched the scene before me with intensity. Freda sat in a chair beneath dozens of wires hanging down from the ceiling of the beauty parlor. When Freda asked what the wires were for, Mrs. Miller explained that electricity would run through them to her head and the heat from those wires would "set" the permanent wave solution.

Now, I had never seen electricity except at my school in Gandeville and was afraid of it because none of us kids were allowed near the light switches on the walls of our school. "Too dangerous, it can kill you," we were told. I knew from hearing about Ben Franklin and his kite, that lightening was a form of electricity---the very thing that they were going to shoot into Aunt Freda's hair. And I was scared to death of lightening since I had watched it strike a tree that sheltered our cows in a thunder storm, killing them instantly.

So, I sat against the wall paralyzed with fear, literally unable to move from my chair as I watched Mrs. Miller wind each strand of Freda's medium brown hair around the small curlers. The stench of rotten eggs filled the room and I wondered if the smell was going to be permanent, too. . . .

When all of the curlers were attached to the electric wires, Mrs. Miller pulled a switch and the permanent began. I sat, glued to my chair for the hour or so that it took to bake. Finally the switch was turned off, the wires unhooked, and the curlers removed. Aunt Freda's hair was thoroughly washed, the odor disappeared, and her hair was dried and set into a "finger wave" by the nimble fingers of Mrs. Miller.

When Aunt Freda stood up, I hardly recognized her! She had turned into the most beautiful young girl I had ever seen! Though I had been frightened for her during her ordeal, I decided it was worth it all, and that one day maybe I could afford to get a permanent too.

Particularly since it would last forever. . . .

All of us piled into Uncle Ray's pickup truck for the trip back home. Uncle Rex, Aunt Freda and I rode in the back. We hadn't gone far before we realized the wind was going to wreck her new hairdo. No one had thought to bring a scarf. She protected her new finger wave as best she could with her hands, but by the time we arrived at the farm, there wasn't much left of Aunt Freda's new perm. She arrived home in tears and I cried myself to sleep that night, as well.

I realized something that day; most things in this life that are labeled permanent aren't. So I've learned to value the few things that are. The one thing most precious to me is to know that God can become a part of our lives if we want Him to, and I do.

The promise of our Lord in John 6:4, "I tell you the truth, he who believes in me has everlasting life," assures me that my life in Christ will continue into eternity. Now, that's permanent.