My first gray hairs were cause for celebration. My mother, politically liberal, but parentally strict, had forbidden me from coloring my hair “until you start going gray.” So when, at 14, I was able to show her a few silver hairs buried in my thick black mop, I was overjoyed. And, God bless her, she took me straight to the store for the box of burgundy dye that was the obsession of adolescent girls (thanks to Angela on “My So Called Life” of course). By the end of high school, I had grown out a Bonnie Raitt-like gray streak on one side. Keep reading »
