I called Aunt Cathy on Christmas.

It was wonderful hearing her voice again.

She was a second mother to me. With no kids of her own and all that time on her hands I was a perfect candidate for informal adoption.

She lived with Uncle Daryl right next door to us and I often knocked on her door just to see what she was up to.

“You look like you need a haircut, Charlie. If you want it cut, you better get it cut today because I’m busy all weekend.”

She washed my hair in her kitchen sink with the finest of shampoos and conditioned it rather nicely in preparation for the cut.

As I nearly drowned under her kitchen spigot she lathered her delicate hands one last time and put a cream rinse in my hair.

I flipped my thick brunette stands to the side and water smelling of heavy perfumes cascaded down my face.

Her towels smelled like a gallon of Downy had been used to soften their fibers. She led me blindly under the wrap of a fluffy towel and sat me down on her kitchen stool for a not so fashionable clip.

Aunt Cathy never had formal beautician training although she watched others do it in beauty salons and told me not to complain when it was uneven because it was free.

For years I ran around the hills of Appalachia looking like an Osmond brother with badly gapped teeth thanks to my Aunt Cathy.

The last time I saw her was 1988 while I was still in the service and came home on leave. Shortly after my last visit back home she had an affair with a man who ran a home style restaurant across the street.

My buzzed military haircut upset her.

A divorce soon followed and she vanished. Years later while driving down the Pennsylvania Turnpike I pulled over for gas and found my Aunt Cathy working the cash register at a rest stop. I waited for her break and we had coffee.

There was so much to catch up on and she only had a fifteen minute break. We didn’t reminisce about hair cuts and growing up in a town where sexually outlandish folks are asked to buzz off. “Hey Charlie, guess what the manager nick-named me?” I looked into her dark brown eyes and admired the bee hive still on top of her head. “They call me the silver fox because my hair is grey. Isn’t that hysterical?” I threw my hair like a Clairol model and giggled abut the fun in life with my second momma.