Sheriff Rhodes and Pierced Ears

This morning about 3:30 I was awake and reading a dandy little mystery, Shotgun Saturday Night by Bill Crider. This is the sheriff‘s reaction when his lady friend had her ears pierced--“Rhodes was feeling a kid again, and he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. When he had been young, ‘nice’ girls weren’t the ones with pierced ears. But that had been a long time ago. Surely he was that old-fashioned, was he?”

It reminded me of getting my ears pierced.

Observations of an Ordinary Person, Post of 4/30/07
Monday, April 30, 2007

"Once I mentioned to my parents that I would like to have my ears pierced. Back in the early 60’s very few people had pierced ears. My father gravely explained to me that my reputation was the most valuable thing I would ever have, and it should be guarded zealously. I was left with the uneasy feeling that any girl with pierced ears was not a “nice” girl. At 15, I didn’t quite get what made someone not a “nice” girl; I was so naïve.

After my father died in 1964, I once again discussed getting my ears pierced with my mother. By that time, I was almost 18 years old, living in an apartment alone, and earning my own living. My mother had moved back to her hometown to be near her family. I decided to stay in what I considered my hometown. I still wanted to see if she would be upset with me if I did the reputation destroying deed. Surprisingly, she didn’t think it was a big deal. When I told her there was no one in my town to do it, she said she would ask around to see if she could find someone in the more sophisticated town where she lived. She asked her hairdresser if she knew anyone who could pierce my ears. The hairdresser said she would do it, but if had to be on a Saturday afternoon in her home. I was under the impression that it was a rather clandestine sideline for the hairdresser.

When my mother and I arrived at the hairdresser’s house, she sat me on a stool and brought out a bottle of alcohol, cotton balls, an eyebrow pencil (for marking my lobes), a few ice cubes, a cork, and a large needle and white thread. After marking the lobes, she swabbed my ears with alcohol, held the ice on my ear to numb it, and jabbed the threaded needle through my ear into the cork. I also fainted. It didn’t hurt that much. It was just the thought of that needle and thread going through my ear. I almost told her to forget the second ear. She tied off the thread leaving a big loop running through my ear. After I recovered from my near faint, I told her to do the other one. When I left $5.00 poorer with thread hanging from my ears, she told me to be sure to apply an antiseptic cream every day (I guess she didn’t want my lobes to rot) and to slide the thread through the holes frequently so that my flesh didn’t stick to the thread as my ears healed. After a week of wearing those disgusting thread loops, I went to the jewelry store and bought a discreet pair of gold studs. I think a short time later I had my long hair cut to show off my earrings. Reputation bedamned! I thought I was quite the rebel.

While I do wear a bit more makeup than my grandmother and mother, I don’t wear hats except to protect my head. I don’t wear heels and little white gloves to go shopping. I have worn earrings every day of my life since that day in the fall of 1964 except when I was required to remove them for the births of my sons. My earrings are in the same category as my wedding band; they are always there. I hope my reputation hasn’t suffered."

I wonder why everyone thought only girls with loose morals had their ears pierced. It had nothing to do with wearing earrings. Everyone wore them; at least, everyone in my family did.

(I tried for about 30 minutes to simply "link" to the old post, but I couldn't get it to work. My wizardness is slipping.)