Charmed, I'm Sure

My mother was obsessed with appearances.  I think it was because she had been a fat kid.  In her later years I used to see if I could get through one phone conversation with her that someone’s “looks” weren’t mentioned. But I’ll hand it to her, she always looked good.

By the time I entered high school, this obsession was directed at me. Apparently, I needed a bit of refining and thus started our weekly treks to the Sunset Strip charm school of Mary Webb Davis.  I wasn’t a fat kid, I was a tomboy and I didn’t fit the acceptable mold.

My mother would pick me up after school --and after she had taught all day-- and drive me down Hollywood Boulevard to the Sunset Strip.  She must have really thought I needed improving.

Sometimes these drives were not happy. I’m not a big talker; I’m comfortable with silence.  My mother was not.  I think she found my silence rude and one day, as we drove by Hollywood High School, she lost her temper at my quietness and forced me to “make conversation.”

I suppose today Mary Webb Davis and her crew would be called “life coaches.” The teachers were conventionally beautiful, pointy breasted, well-groomed, stiff haired blonds and apparent experts of everything I didn’t know that I needed to know. I am in no doubt that many brain cells were sacrificed by theses women from decades of breathing in hair spray, polish remover and eyelash glue.  I doubt a single one could name the capital of Canada.  Can you?

I learned valuable skills like how to accept a compliment (not a skill that I have much need for), how to walk down stairs gracefully and, most importantly, how to apply false eyelashes. I learned to drink a large glass of water with freshly squeezed lemon juice first thing in the morning—a sure cure for bad skin and the evils of the world. I mastered the art of using an emery board;  only sand in one direction. This was long before botox—I can only imagine what they might have suggested to a 16 year old—and liposuction.  Breast implants were unheard of. 

Sure enough, I looked better for a while. I wore false eyelashes to school, got a boyfriend and used peroxide to highlight my “dishwater blonde” hair which was in the de rigueur style.  And I’m certain my mother thought she was providing me with a wonderful experience.  I’ve just always wondered why my sister never got the same wonderful experience.