saturday was a special day

If you grew up like I grew up, you will recognize that line (with a slight change of verb tense). It was one of my favorite songs in Sunday School as a child.

In case you are unfamiliar with the song, it is about all of the things we should do on Saturday so that we will be able to keep the Sabbath holy. The things that made Saturday special included washing the car and shining our shoes and cleaning our nails and shampooing our hair. (The song also include the line, "We call it our get-the-work-done day," which I thought, even as a child, was just a great line.)

My mother did most of the chores in the song throughout the week, but the one thing she did every Saturday night was to wash my thick long brown hair. Looking back, it didn't strike me as odd that she only washed my hair once a week. I never really gave it a thought. But once a week, we would stand at the kitchen sink (in her 1950's kitchen, complete with white metal cabinets, formica countertops that were white with tiny bits of turquoise and orange, and dark grayish, greenish, brownish linolium, that likely contained asbestos), and she would wash my hair in that sink.

As I think back, I seem to recall that she used Breck shampoo and Breck cream rinse. Does anybody out there remember cream rinse? Did your mom pour a little bit into one of those metal cups that were bright shiny silver or green or red or blue (at least until dishwashers came along and faded the colors) and then did she fill the cup to the top so that after all of the shampoo was washed out, she could pour that cream rinse water over your hair and then rinse that out and wrap up your hair in a towel on your head?

And then did you realize, every Saturday night, that your hair was still tangly even though your mom used the cream rinse? And then you got to sleep on those pink foam curlers so that on Sunday, you would have masses of ringlets?

Yes, Saturday was a special day.