The summer before her senior year in high school, my daughter dyed her hair hot pink and joined an all-girl rock band.
I figured if my kid wanted pink hair she could deal with the consequences. After all, she was the one who'd get all the stares and funny looks and stupid questions, not me. I tried to tell her that people pay a lot of money to have their hair dyed her natural shade of strawberry blonde but she wanted hot pink.
I remember trying to explain it to my mother...the one with all the Toni home perms and sponge rollers.... "You know, Mom...it's a good color for her!"
It was true. When I'd show up at the high school to pick my daughter up after school I saw other kids with wildly colored hair. Now and then I'd spot one and think "Oh, honey...that's the wrong shade of green for you!" But my daughter's pink hair looked really good with her skin tone.
I used to tell people, "She's always had a bright, shining personality. Now you just see it even more!"
My daughter liked all the stares and funny looks. She enjoys shaking things up, and I like that about her. I'm glad she doesn't settle for the ordinary, that she wants her life to be an expression of who she really is inside.
Besides, when a teenager is 5" 10" with hot pink hair, it makes her really easy to find in a crowded mall!
Oh, and about the all-girl band.... This was a group of her friends from school and she went to all their shows, knew all their songs (they're originals, with a couple of covers thrown in) and cheered them on as they won the local Battle of the High School Bands. She was also as disappointed as all their fans when their bass player quit the group. The remaining girls hoped they'd be able to find another friend to take her place and looked at Becky and said "It's a shame you don't play bass". She told them I'd taught her some bass runs on my guitar once. They said "You don't sing, do you?" She always sang in her church and school choirs in Texas before we moved to Maryland. So they gave her a tryout and she was in the band.
All she had to do was learn all the lyrics and vocals to all of their songs...oh, and learn to play the bass guitar parts, too. Good thing she had three whole months before their next show!
She did it.
Just like that.
Using a borrowed bass guitar.
Every evening she went to the home of one of her band-mates to their basement practice studio. We didn't see as much of her at home, but we always knew where she was and who she was with.
My assignment in all this was to serve as the band's official photographer and make publicity flyers for them. And to find her a hot pink bass to match her hair.
A little research told me that no hot-pink bass guitars were currently in production. (Daisy Rock Guitars has one now, though.) But I was sure that somebody back in the psychodelic '70's must have made one. So I took her to a guitar show, like a guitar flea market and sure enough...there it was. (I know in this picture, it looks more red than hot-pink, but trust me...it's the same color as her hair!)
My daughter's featured solo with the group was called "Datin' Satan".
Sounds appropriate for a good little Southern Baptist girl, huh?
For a couple of years, until the band fizzled and the girls went their separate ways, we had a wild ride! Pink Hair, rock bands and all!
I wouldn't trade it for anything!
Oh, and about the hair...it went back to her natural strawberry blond when she started managing a video game store while still in community college. The corporate world tends to frown on hot pink. So did the bank where she worked as a senior teller after that. You can spot her here, in the "Living Social Team" photo, still strawberry blonde...so far!
But here she is, my 17 year old pink-haired rockstar, singing "Datin' Satan"....
