When I was a boy I saw the most incredible hairpulling match between my mom, Lois, and her girlfriend, Fran Aldridge (the names are fictitious but their catfight isn’t). The event made such an impression I can still replay it in my mind. Although I can’t be certain of exactly what they said to each other, the dialogue is close to what passed between them and captures the essence of their confrontation.
I was home from school, recovering from some childhood illness. Unable to sleep and more than a little bored, I went to my desk to work on a plastic model. The desk was beside a second-story window which overlooked our backyard and the Aldridge’s.
Fran’s family had moved to our neighborhood almost three years earlier. Not long after they arrived, she and Mom became fast friends. So much so, they had a gate installed in the fence that separated our backyards to make it easier for them to visit. They were tight as ticks, or so it seemed. As things turned-out, in today’s parlance we might say they were really “frenemies.”
It was late morning on a spring day and Fran came outside to hang up some laundry on the clothes line. She’d also let her large, male poodle, Dorrit, out to play. Fran was a poodle fancier and Dorrit was her “Precious.” After she’d hung the clothes up to dry, Fran returned to her home, forgetting to bring Dorrit with her.
Seeing that his mistress had left him outside, alone, Dorrit lost no time hopping over the fence into our backyard. Several minutes later, Mom entered the backyard and found Dorrit digging like a mad gopher. Mom had a green thumb and loved her flowers. So, when she caught Dorrit destroying another of her flower beds (he’d done this twice before), she became upset. She tried to shoo him away, but he ignored her and kept digging. Frustrated, Mom took her right foot, planted it against Dorrit’s big rump, and pushed.
At that moment, Fran came outside and saw what was happening. She mistook Mom’s push for a kick and yelled “How dare you kick my Precious!” Practically flying across the yard, she flung open the gate and advanced to within several feet of Mom. The poodle beat a hasty retreat back to his yard.
Fran and Mom couldn’t have been more evenly matched if they’d been hand-picked by a fight promoter. They were 35 years old, about 5 feet 5 inches tall, 125 pounds, with attractive faces and figures. Mom’s face was oval and Fran’s was slightly square. Their figures were so similar they could wear each other’s clothes—36C breasts, narrow waists, and rounded hips. It was their hair, however, which separated them from most women.
Mom and Fran were blessed with beautiful, very thick, full heads of hair—each one had been heard to say that she had enough hair for two women. When Fran first moved to the neighborhood, she and Mom wore their hair about the shoulders. Now, they’d let it grow below their breasts. For the 1950s, hair that length was considered very long. It was truly their crowning glory and something they took great pride in caring for and styling.
This particular morning, Mom’s black tresses and Fran’s blonde locks were divided into about a dozen sections rolled-up on large curlers, except for their shorter hair in front which they’d wound onto two medium rollers. They were both wearing snug-fitting, Capri pants--the ones that are calf-length with a slit on the outside of the leg bottoms. Mom's were red and Fran's were navy blue. Their collared, V-neck, short-sleeved blouses also complemented their figures and showed-off their 36-C breasts. Mom's was white and Fran's light blue, to highlight their black and blonde hair. They were wearing low-heeled shoes.
Fran accused Mom of kicking her “Precious.” Mom said she didn’t kick the poodle. She pushed him to get his attention and to stop him from tearing up her flower bed.
“Well, Lois, let’s see how you like being pushed!”
Using both hands, Fran shoved Mom backwards. At first, Mom was stunned by Fran’s aggressive action. She hesitated for a moment and then responded by pushing Fran. Not to be outdone, Fran stepped toward Mom while raising her right hand.
“Crack!”
Mom’s head spun to the right. As she nursed her reddened check with her left hand, she tried to regain her composure.
“Why’d you slap me? We’re girlfriends.”
“Yes, that’s true, Lois, darling. If we weren’t and you didn’t have all that hardware in your hair, I might’ve been tempted to walk away with two handfuls.”
“So that’s it! You’re not upset about Dorrit. You’re just looking for an excuse to get your hands in my hair because you’re jealous. What’s the matter, Fran, can’t you stand a little competition?”
“You’re crazy, Lois, if you think I’m jealous of that rat’s nest you call hair! Why, it’s you who’s been jealous of my long blonde hair since the first day I moved to the neighborhood.”
A month prior to Mom and Fran’s quarrel, the Aldridge’s announced they were moving in several months. The week before their argument, another family in the neighborhood hosted a going away party for Fran’s family. We arrived about the same time as the Aldridge’s. Mom and Fran looked terrific. They’d both decided to wear their hair down and to have it professionally set and styled. Mom and Fran turned heads everywhere they went. They and their hair were the talk of the party.
About an hour after the party began, the hostess called Mom and Fran over to her. She said everyone was wondering who had the longest hair—Lois or Fran. To find out, she was going to measure their hair. Using a cloth tape measure and the assistance of another woman, she placed the tape on the hairline above their forehead, pulled it across their crown, and down the length of their hair, while the other woman pulled the hair taut. After measuring Mom and Fran’s hair twice, the hostess announced that Mom was the neighborhood Rapunzel. I don’t recall exactly how long Mom’s hair was, but it was 2 inches longer than Fran’s. Afterward, Fran appeared irritated with Mom and they avoided each other for the rest of the party.
Uncorked by the incident at the party, almost three years of bottled-up jealousy poured forth as Mom and Fran traded insults about their hair. Their previously unspoken rivalry over their lengthy locks now had a voice and all sorts of cats were let out of the bag. Fran said she was sick and tired of hearing her husband talk about how great Mom looked with much longer hair. She was also upset because she’d caught her husband ogling Mom whenever she wore her hair down. And, she accused Mom of adding insult to injury by stealing the spotlight away from her at her going-away party.
Mom said she was sick and tired of hearing Dad talk about Fran’s long blonde locks, so she let her hair grow longer to show Dad that he had something even better at home. Furthermore, she accused Fran of purposely tossing her blonde hair about at the party whenever she was near my Dad. Things came to a head, so to speak, when Mom called Fran a bleached-blonde hussy.
“That does it, you frizzy-haired tramp!” Fran yelled, as she reached out with her right hand and grabbed a roller-full of Mom’s hair.
Mom mimicked Fran’s move. With their left hands, the two rivals grabbed their opponent’s right wrists, to lessen the strain on the roots of their roller-bound lock of hair. They stood there tugging on each other’s roller for about a minute.
They were in a deadlock. If they let go of their opponent’s right wrist with their left hand, both hands would be free to pull all their rival’s curlers out, along with much of their hair. In the process, their adversary’s tresses would be destroyed, but so would their own. It was a no-win situation.
“Let go!” Fran demanded.
“You let go!” Mom replied. “You started it!”
After bickering a little while longer, Mom astonished Fran by telling her “If you really want to pull hair, let’s take our curlers out.”
A sly grin began to grow across Fran’s face. She’d gotten Mom to suggest what she’d wanted to do from the beginning. Soon, the antagonists reached consensus on a most unusual plan. They would temporarily break-off their altercation and go to their homes where they’d remove the curlers and brush out their hair. In ten minutes, they’d return to the same spot, since it wasn’t visible from the rest of the neighborhood, and finish what they’d started.
I’ve thought about this ever since it happened and I’ve come up with a couple of reasons why they agreed to such a plan. Maybe they felt that after ten minutes passed their tempers would cool down and they’d no longer want to pull hair. Or, perhaps, the realization that they were no longer going to be neighbors removed any sense of restraint and replaced it with a sense of freedom to express themselves in a way they wouldn’t have under normal circumstances. If so, both moms must’ve been confident that with the curlers gone and their hair down they could get the better of their rival without losing as much of their own mane. Whatever the reason, they cautiously released their grips on their opponent’s curler and wrist.
“Before we leave, I’ve got something of yours to return,” Mom said.
“And what could that possibly be?” Fran asked.
“This!”
The word had hardly left Mom’s mouth before she “returned” Fran’s earlier slap.
“Crack!”
Nursing her left check, Fran called out, “Enjoy brushing your hair, Lois, because when I’m through giving you a new “do”, you won’t have enough left to pin curl.”
After this exchange, I was fairly confident Mom and Fran were going to have a catfight. Then it dawned on me. Mom would check to make sure I was asleep before going back outside. Quickly, I hopped in bed and did my best to appear asleep. About ten minutes later, I heard the door to my room open. Satisfied that I was in dreamland, Mom left to confront Fran.
Jumping out of bed, I made for my grandstand seat. Fran was already at the gate, waiting for Mom to appear. When Mom stepped outside and saw Fran, they began walking toward the spot where they’d argued. Their beautiful, long, curled hair bounced and swayed behind them. They could’ve been Breck Girls.
Since Mom and Fran’s magnificent manes were the objects of their jealousy and the targets of their catfight, their hairstyles deserve description. They were similar in two respects—they were parted in the center and the ends were cut in a rounded or “U” shape, so that the hair in the very back was a little longer than the hair on the sides. Otherwise, their locks were styled differently. Long, Bettie Page-style bangs covered Fran’s forehead while the remainder of her silky blonde hair fell over the shoulders and down below the breasts, where the ends curled under in a deep roll. Mom’s forehead was framed by two eye-length waves or wings (similar to the way Hedy Lamarr styled the front of her hair), while the rest of her shiny black hair cascaded over the shoulders and down below the breasts, ending in big curls.
From the expressions on their faces and the way they were walking, I could see that Fran and Mom’s tempers had not cooled down while they let down their hair. Nonetheless, in spite of their anger they approached each other cautiously. This was going to be their first hairpulling catfight and not something they were going to enter into lightly.
Standing just out of arm’s reach, Mom and Fran locked their eyes in a stare-down duel. It was then that I noticed they'd both put on makeup. Perhaps, war paint is more like it. After a minute or so, Mom broke the silence, but she wasn’t speaking loud enough for me to hear what she was saying. Nor was I able to hear Fran’s response or most of the discussion that followed. However, after a couple of minutes their “discussion” heated-up and turned into an argument, as their voices grew louder.
“You did, too, kick him. I saw you. You kicked him just like this!” accused Fran.
Suddenly, her right foot shot out and connected with Mom’s left shin.
“Oww!” yelled Mom.
“For the last time, you dumb blonde, I didn’t kick your mutt!”
Mom’s right foot shot out and connected with Fran’s left shin.
“Oww!” yelled Fran.
“How dare you call my Precious a mutt, you stringy-haired slut!”
Crack! Fran slapped Mom.
Mom’s head spun to the right as her long black hair rose up and spread out like a fan behind her.
“How dare you call me a slut, you bleached-blonde whore!”
Crack! Mom slapped Fran.
Fran’s head spun to the right as her long blonde hair rose up and spread out like a fan behind her.
For several moments they glared at one another, as the hand prints on their left cheeks grew redder.
“You’re going to lose more hair than me, Fran!”
“My roots are stronger than yours, Lois. You’re the one who’ll be wearing a wig!”
Then, as if on cue, they flew at each other and latched onto their rival’s luxuriant locks. They looked like two bobble-head dolls gone berserk. Their heads were moving side-to-side, front-to-back, up-and-down, and all around, while their flowing manes engulfed their upper bodies in a raging whirlwind. Fran and Mom’s hairpulling showdown had begun.
As they continued pulling each other’s hair, they pulled themselves closer and closer until Mom and Fran simultaneously moved their hands behind their adversary’s back, grabbed the ends of two long locks, and yanked down really hard. Abruptly, their heads snapped backward. With faces tilted up to the sky, eyes squeezed shut, and teeth clinched, they began moving slowly in a tight circle, first in one direction, then the other.
After a minute or so, Fran changed the tempo of their hairpulling dance by first yanking violently on one of Mom’s locks and then on the other, as though she was yanking on bell pulls.
A loud and prolonged “Oooowwww!” came from Mom.
“How’s this feel, Lois, darling?”
Wanting to share the pain, Mom began alternately yanking down as hard as she could on Fran’s two locks.
Fran sounded like a cat whose tail had been stepped on—“Yeeeooowww!”
“What’s the matter, Blondie? Can’t take what you dish out?”
Soon, Mom changed tactics. Releasing her grips on Fran’s hair one at a time, Mom switched hairpull positions. She grabbed a long lock on each side of Fran’s head and pulled down, forcing Fran to bend forward at the waist. Fran must have thought this was a good move, because she did the same thing to Mom.
Stepping backwards until their rival’s two tresses were stretched taut between them, Mom and Fran began a true hairpulling tug-of-war, using their lengthy locks in lieu of a rope. Back and forth across the yard they pulled one another by the hair.
Changing tactics, again, Fran planted her feet wide apart and tossed Mom by her hair, first one way, then another. Mom did the same thing to Fran. Within seconds, they were madly tossing each other by the hair all about the backyard.
“Ooowww!” yelled Fran as she fell to the ground after a particularly vicious toss by Mom. Staggering backwards, Mom managed to stay on her feet. She looked surprised as she stared at the couple of dozen blonde strands she held in her grasp. Fran was rubbing the spot on her head where the strands had been uprooted, when she noticed the cause of her fall. Mom noticed it, too. Fran had stepped in a fresh pile of her poodle’s poop.
“Serves you right,” Mom said, as she began to laugh.
Looking up at Mom, who was standing in front of her, laughing, and holding her freshly uprooted blonde hair, Fran grew so mad she turned red-in-the-face.
“I’m going to rip that mangy mop off your head!”
With unexpected swiftness, Fran leapt to her feet and grabbed Mom by the hair. She clutched a thick hank of Mom’s hair close to the scalp with her left hand, while selecting a slender lock of black hair to yank on with her right. “Yeow!” yelled Mom as she released Fran’s torn tress and grabbed two handfuls of blonde hair that were still attached to their owner. Securing a firm hold on a thick lock near Fran’s scalp, Mom twirled a slimmer lock around her fist and began yanking. Now, both women were in a hairpulling frenzy. Yank, yank, yank! Yank, yank, yank!
“Ooowww!” they yelled in unison, as several dozen blonde and brunette strands came loose while Mom and Fran pulled them free of their adversary’s scalp. They took a step back, holding each other by a fistful of hair. Their right hands held a long, slender lock of blonde or brunette hair. Brandishing their hard-won battle trophy in the face of their antagonist, they exchanged words. I didn’t hear what they said, but whatever it was it made them madder than two wet cats. Angrily tossing the blonde and brunette tresses to the ground, they resumed their earlier stance and began another hairpulling tug-of-war.
Bent at the waist, they pulled with all their might on their rival’s two, long locks. This time, however, they were digging their feet in as they slowly stepped backwards, inch by inch, steadily adding more and more tension to the roots of their over-stretched tresses. Painful moans and groans came from within the curtains of blonde and black hair dangling to the ground, as Fran and Mom maintained their death grips on each other’s locks while continuing to back away. Any second now, something was going to have to give. Then it happened—the sound of hair being torn and ripped out by the roots!
“Yeeeooowww!” both moms yelled as they abruptly separated and stood upright. Looking at the contents of their hands, Fran and Mom began to grin at the amount of their opponent's strands clutched between their fingers. Holding up their handfuls of hair for each other to see, Fran's grin changed to a scowl when she realized Mom held more blonde strands than she held black ones.
Infuriated that she had lost more hair than Mom, Fran yelled “You bitch!”
“You’re the bitch!” Mom retorted. “You started this catfight, but I’m going to finish it!”
For two women who never cursed, the use of the “B” word indicated their tempers had reached the boiling point
Blind with rage, they charged their enemy while raising their arms and transforming their hands into claws. They didn’t stop until they collided, smashing their breasts together while burying their talons deep in the back of their rival’s manes. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever witnessed. Two attractive, evenly-matched moms, with really long hair of contrasting colors, engaged in the most feminine form of fighting—hairpulling. Given that Mom and Fran were equally fit, with equally long and abundant hair, and new to catfighting, it was a toss-up who’d win.
Their hairpulling contest had become an endurance test. The mom who could endure having her hair pulled and torn for the longest time would emerge the winner. And, for the moment, there was no sign either mom was ready to call it quits anytime soon.
“Give up, Lois, while you’ve still got some hair on your head!”
“You give up,” warned Mom, “unless you want to look like Yul Brynner’s twin sister!”
Frustrated by their inability to gain an advantage over their antagonist, but determined to win, Mom and Fran continued to escalate the intensity of their attack against each other’s crowning glory. Grabbing the hair at the back of their heads, they began "trolling" their hands through their opponent's lengthy locks, pulling stands loose as they slid their clinched fists down their tresses, until they came to the ends. Then, they'd wiggle their fingers, letting a dozen or so strands they'd pulled loose fall to the ground. Mom and Fran went crazy, tearing at each other's hair with abandon. They were transformed into wild women. The fur literally flew as both moms appeared to relish ripping out strands of her rival’s mane by the roots. It’s a good thing they have so much hair I thought.
The ferocity of their struggle finally caused them to fall in a flurry of hair, arms, and legs. Beginning to tire, they wrapped their legs together, like a pretzel, and started a slow-rolling, hairpulling match across the lawn, leaving behind a trail of torn tresses. First, Mom was on top, then Fran. Because their hair was so long, it was never out of reach, which made it almost impossible for one mom or the other to remain on top of her antagonist for more than 10 to 20 seconds.
On and on this churning catball of hairpulling furies careened about the yard. A stream of painful noises emanated from both moms, as they yanked and jerked on their rival's tresses. Minutes passed and still Fran and Mom rolled about the ground, pulling hair as they squealed, yelped, moaned and groaned between name-calling and insults. Eventually, they came to a halt with Mom in the superior position.
Until now, both moms had focused on yanking each other’s longest locks, ignoring their shorter eyebrow-length bangs or eye-length waves. Mom changed things by grabbing two handfuls of Fran’s signature fringe of thick bangs. Immediately, Fran released her hold on Mom’s long tresses and grasped Mom’s signature “Hedy-Lamarr-style” waves.
In an effort to force an end to their hairpulling contest, Mom shook Fran’s head while jerking hard on her bangs. Fran reciprocated by jerking on Mom’s waves. Then Mom retaliated by tossing Fran’s head around even harder while yanking furiously on her bangs. Fran responded in kind. As she started to shake Mom’s head a second time, while jerking on her waves, Mom went wild and pulled on Fran’s bangs as hard as she could, tossing her head about, again, and again, and again, in quick succession.
“Aiiieee!” yelled Fran. She abruptly released Mom’s waves and put her hands to her bangs, moaning in pain. Mom had wrenched-out two tufts of Fran’s bangs, by their roots.
“Stop! I can’t take it anymore! I give! I give!” cried Fran.
Mom was first to get to her feet, tossing aside the tufts of blonde bangs. Fran followed slowly. Tears trailed down their cheeks, indicating just how painful their hairpulling had been. Winded by their violent exertions, they caught their breath as they instinctively began to arrange their disheveled hair. Beautifully coiffed and curled at the start of their fight, now their manes were in wild disarray. Their blouses were also missing buttons so that you could see their bras and their short sleeves were torn along the seams--accidental damage caused while grabbing and pulling on each other's long locks. Before parting, Fran looked at Mom with such animosity that if looks could kill she would have been stone-cold dead. Not knowing when Mom would check on me, I went back to bed.
Once Mom was in my parent’s bedroom, she spent about an hour fixing her hair. When she did come to look-in on me, Mom had put her locks up in a French twist. Even I couldn’t tell she’d been in a 12-minute hairpulling match. I acted as though nothing had happened and so did she.
A couple of days later, I discovered Mom hadn’t spent all that time in her bedroom, after all. She’d slipped out to the backyard and raked-up the strands of blonde and brunette hair littering the lawn. As part of my chores, it was my responsibility to put out the trash. While doing so, I came across a small, brown paper bag that was taped closed. After pulling off the tape, I found torn blonde and black tresses stuffed inside. I’m sure it was satisfying to Mom that there was more blonde hair in the bag. Although neither mom will ever know how much loose hair ended up in her opponent’s brush as she straightened her torn tresses, Fran left more of her hair on the ground. She had learned who had the strongest roots, the hard way.
Further proof of Mom’s victory became apparent about a week after the fight. I saw Fran in her backyard and did a double-take. She’d cut her hair! Before her catfight with Mom, her blonde tresses fell below her breasts. Now, most likely because of damage from their hairpulling contest, she’d gotten her locks shorn to about six inches below her shoulders. I’m sure the sight of Fran’s new, shorter “do” must have given Mom even greater satisfaction.
