For Easter: A Tribute to Mom's Beehives

Janey Schultz on Easter, 1972.

It’s Easter weekend, and my mind is filled with images of holidays past.

I am referring, of course, to my mother’s beehives. I use the plural because there were multiple versions of her towering tribute to the art of teasing. Depending on her stated preference and the mood of Gary, her trusted stylist, the height of Mom’s hair ranged from a low-hanging mushroom cloud to Mount Vesuvius on the verge of exploding. Most of the time her beehive hovered somewhere in between. Think wasp’s nest in August. (She found this description hilarious.)

At Easter, Mom sometimes asked Gary to tuck a small bunny or two on one side of her beehive. Dad said they looked like abandoned hikers scaling a mountain, but we kids found them fascinating. Gary was always trying to outdo himself. For Easter in 1965, he inserted a tiny bird’s nest along the bobby pin border at the back of Mom’s head. Inside were three, even tinier colored eggs. Word got out fast, and kids from as far as three streets over knocked on our door to see it. That’s when Mom became a neighborhood legend. She was careful never to brag about it.

We are in the process of moving out of our house, and I am determined that we will leave with less than we currently own. This has required multiple excavations through storage bins I have not opened since the day we moved here in 2013. The word “embarrassing” comes to mind, but only after “horrified” has had its daily workout in my head. We’ve been so busy. How did we find the time to accumulate so much stuff?

Occasionally, however, I discover buried treasure, which is how I found a small bundle of photos of Mom’s beehives I’d collected over the years. My father snapped many of them, which explains why we have no photos of Gary’s wizardry with props, except this one, above. Mom’s tinsel garland likely made the cut because she was standing with their only son, Chuckie, aka The Prince, who apparently at age seven was given his first bottle of Old Spice.

This Polaroid photo of Mom is one of my favorites, in part because of how she is smiling at my father. His inscription on the back:

Jane on 54^th St.

1976

So romantic.

My mother said she wore her hair piled high because it “evened us out.” She was referring to the height difference between my parents. She was four feet, eleven inches tall; Dad was six-one. As you can see in this photo, with her beehive, they’re practically even.

She once explained to teenage me how height doesn’t matter when you fall in love because torsos match up regardless of the length of legs. To this day I cannot think of that completely unnecessary exchange on our porch swing without feeling my cheeks catch fire.

For a short period of time in 1970, Mom added curly sideburns, which matched Dad’s, or so she said. I don’t know where my parents were for this photo, but I’m certain it’s not in their bedroom because she is not sitting in front of her three-paneled makeup mirror with settings for daylight, office, home and evening. Mom gave all three of us girls our own make-up mirrors by the time we were sixteen. The last setting was my favorite because it made me look as if the sun was setting on my face.

A word about maintenance. My mother could afford to get her hair done only once a week, and sometimes she had to wait through two. Her preservation of the hive was an exercise in mummification. At bedtime, she wrapped her hair in two nets and a scarf. She also sprayed it thrice daily with Aqua Net, which she bought in cans the size of oil drums. I have no idea how my father managed to get this photo of her. His inscription on the back of this photo: Sleepyeyes. He had a gift for misreading the room.

At some point in her life, Mom finally stopped wearing beehives and moved on to bubble hair and acrylic nails, one of which caught fire when an index finger got too close to the candle she was lighting. I extinguished the flame by throwing an entire glass of red wine at her, but that’s a story for another day. My point is that I’m glad she waited to make this hair transition until after my daughter was born. This is two-year-old Caitlin with Mom and Dad, in 1989. How I wish every child had this chance to explore the eighth wonder of the world.

A few weeks ago, my friend Gaylee McCracken couldn’t stop giggling as she handed me a gift bag. I opened the box inside and saw a lid. “Oh, a travel mug,” I said.

“Keep going,” she said. More giggles.

I pulled out the cup. It looked exactly like a 1980s hot pink can of Aqua Net hairspray.

My turn to laugh.

I met Gaylee when we both were in our twenties. She is my longest friend, which makes her sound like a piece of pulled taffy but sounds better than calling her my oldest friend. Or so I have been told, many times.

Gaylee knew my mother well, and visited her the day before she died. Even then, we marveled at Mom’s full head of hair, which made her smile. My new mug is currently sitting on top of a bookshelf in our increasingly empty living room. It is swathed in one of Mom’s nylon scarves, waiting for the move. You’d better believe it’s coming with us.

If Mom were still here, she would have called today to tell me about the giant ham she bought for Sunday’s dinner. She would want me to say Happy Easter to all who celebrate. She would also want me to add that God loves everyone no matter what they believe. I’ve quoted her definition of Christianity many times over the years: “Being a Christian means fixing yourself and helping others, not the other way around.”

Miss you, Mom. More than ever.

Mom wielding her weapons on Easter, 1971.