JOY ALONG THE WAY: GOOD COVER-UPS FOR BAD HAIR DAYS

When a woman says she's having a bad hair day, one somehow gets the impression that it is something that happens only occasionally. News Alert! I have a bad hair day every day.

Oh, for the good old Buster Brown hair days -- parted in the middle with bangs coming down to a little above the eyebrows. Comb it once in the morning, taking about a minute, and it lasted all day. Let the whirlwinds have their way, the hair always fell back into place. Now, caught in a stiff breeze that twists my hair every which way and it stays that way. All day.

I've tried all the highfalutin' shampoos, oils and whatnots. They all come out the same for me.

I have some devices to deal with my "every-day-bad-hair-day" affliction. If I have to go somewhere beyond the perimeters of my home place, there is the green visor shade that makes me appear as if I've just arisen from some bookkeeping job to attend quickly to another demand on my time.

There is the little blue jean cap with narrow brim that flops downward all around. This will make me look as if I've just suddenly been called from some gardening activity and had no time to change.

Then there is a rolled brim, crocheted, straw hat for more formal occasions where I'm supposed to look respectful for the occasion.

There's always the curling iron. I don't like it, but I do use it from time to time to curl a few tendrils. "It'll soften your face," say the professionals. The trouble with the curling iron, I can reach only that part of my hair that is in front. The back will just have to go its own way, which is every which way.

As for my hairdo around home, it's always standing stiffly at crack attention in fear that someone is going to drop by.

There is another device to control the bad hair day. It is not new, but one which I was well acquainted with around the second decade of the 20th century. A dust cap! At least that's what they were called then. Grandma had one for every day of the week. That doesn't mean she just had seven either. For some days she had one for morning and afternoon.

If Grandma came across a piece of fabric left over from someone's sewing project, or even an old dress or shirt that still had a good area that would make a circle with a diameter of about 20 to 24 inches, she would exclaim, joyfully, "Why, this would make a good dust cap!"

Here's what her procedure was: She cut out the circle from the cloth, put a tiny hem around it and sewed a casing about an inch above the hem for a piece of narrow elastic to go through, the length of which, when the two ends were sewn together, would fit her head comfortably when the fabric puffed up over her hair. Sounds like a modern shower cap, doesn't it?

Of course we didn't have showers then, but Grandma had bad hair days, I suppose. I wonder, is this inherited? Her arthritic hands couldn't do much with her hair except push it inside the dust cap. On Sundays, with a pink flowered dust cap edge with lace all around, and her little gold-rimmed glasses, she looked like a doll out of some fairy tale.

I'll never achieve that look but how will anyone know that underneath my dust cap is perfectly coffered hair?

In a minute I'm going upstairs to rummage through the cedar chest for a piece of fabric 22 inches in diameter, pink flowered.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.