and present, TV gal pals:
Absolutely FabulousAny Day NowCluelessDesigning WomenThe Facts of LifeFriendsGirl TalkGolden GirlsI Love LucyLaverne and ShirleyOprah!RoseanneSex and the CitySquare PegsThat Girl!Two Fat ChicksTwo Hot TamalesThe View
We've all since grown up (sort of), made our own homes, and given the Hawg a rest. Nowadays he makes his appearances sporadically via the postal service on a special occasion or when we get together for group vacations or parties. He is so sly, so wily, that he always manages to keep his location secret. Just when we think he's retired, he pops up in the most embarrassing place….
—AME MAHLER BEANLAND
“It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.”
—Zora Neale Hurston
The GradY HoTel
Detrice and I have been friends longer than I can remember and sisters-in-law for more than half that time, since I married her husband Pete's brother, Buck, She is one of those magical people who has a way of attracting mischief and making you feel like the world spins a little faster when she's around. The stories I could tell…. But I'll share one of the tamer ones—don't want to embarrass anyone too badly.
It was the summer of 1959, and we were on our way to Sears and Roebuck in Atlanta for a big shopping trip—kids' clothes, curtains, and a little something for ourselves with anything left over. My niece Kay, who was twelve at the time, came with us. It was a long drive, and I remember how we were talking, listening to the radio, carrying on, and laughing—you can always count on laughing when Detrice is around. Detrice wheeled her station wagon into the lot and we headed into the store.
After an hour or so of shopping, Detrice nonchalantly said, “Bootsie, while we're here in the city, let's stop by the bar at the Grady Hotel and listen to some music.” Just as coolly as if she did this kind of big-city thing every day. Since I'd never sat at the bar in the Grady Hotel in Atlanta and listened to music, I said that sounded fine, but what about Kay? “I'll fix her up,” Detrice replied, leading her to the ladies' room. Detrice loves makeup and is a regular Michelangelo when it comes to application. She travels with every manner of brush, tint, and gloss in her purse, and she's not afraid to use it. In no time flat, she transformed Kay into a pint-sized thirty-year-old. A stop by the makeup counter for a spritz of perfume, and we were clipping back out to the car.
Bootsie and Detrice on a recent adventure to see the Sweet Potato Queens in Jackson, Mississippi.
Detrice drives like she puts on makeup—without fear. Careening into the parking lot of the Grady, she cut in front of an old man in a pickup and crunched into the parking space he was waiting for. In the process, she creased the entire left side of her wood-paneled station wagon along the bumper of a Cadillac. The old man was yelling at us, I was flustered, and Kay was beginning to cry. Detrice, calm as a deacon on Sunday, turned and said, “Now calm down, Sugar, you'll ruin your makeup. We'll tell Uncle Pete this happened in the parking lot while we were in Sears. Now come on. The band starts at eight.” The old man, stunned at these two women and a little girl in heavy makeup, just shook his head.
I was a nervous wreck, but was so busy keeping up with Detrice's brisk pace I had little time to think of anything besides not tripping. Detrice put her arm around Kay and swept into the lounge with a passing wink to the bartender and a sugar-coated, “She's just real petite, Honey.” Charmed, he grinned back and kept drying glasses. We tried to act sophisticated, but couldn't help but lapse into a few giggling fits as I sipped my greyhound, Detrice nursed a vodka tonic, and Kay stirred a cherry Coke.
All of a sudden, I became captivated by what seemed like an inordinate number of beautiful women sitting at the bar waiting for their husbands. They perched elegantly on their stools, hair perfectly coifed, with their hourglass figures brightly encased in daring fashions. Like exotic birds, they cooed and fussed over their mates as they joined them. My captivation turned to downright fascination when Detrice explained that they were not married to the men and that the warm reception was paid for, I'd never seen anything like that before. We took in the atmosphere, tapped our feet to the live music, and for a few hours tried our best to pretend like we were from Atlanta. Soon wed spent all our money, but Detrice insisted on staying until midnight, when they served complimentary popcorn and treated all the ladies to a free drink.
At 12:15, after a stop in the ladies' room to wash Kay's face, we could hardly walk for giggling as we headed back to the bruised station wagon and cruised home, laughing until our sides ached. Pete was in bed when we arrived home, so Detrice had all night to mentally formulate her Academy Award-caliber performance of how the car was dented in the parking lot after we came out of the store—which was really the truth, minus a few details.
—MARY “BOOTSIE” MAHLER
a Hair-RAising AdveNture
Let's just say I told Jody she didn't need a hair dryer in Africa, but she insisted. It was 1990, and Jody and I had just graduated from college, where we had been roommates for two of those formative years. We met on a hiking trip before freshman year and later bonded over cigarettes, boys, our mothers, and the answering machine. Jody was learning to play the guitar, and the only song she could really play was “Angie,” by the Rolling Stones. In an effort to expand her repertoire, we spent hours trying to record our rendition of James Taylor's “Fire and Rain” on our outgoing message. Life was sweet. After graduation, in the ongoing effort to delay reality, we decided to spend some time abroad. She went to Nairobi to build housing for poor families, and I went to Israel to kiss foreign boys.
Many huts and hotties later, we agreed to meet in the Frankfurt airport to backpack through newly opened Eastern Europe. How we found each other among the teeming throngs I'll never know; it must have been the hair dryer-shaped bulge protruding from Jody's pack that innately drew me to her. In an effort to stay light, Jody would rip out the pages of Moby Dick once she read them, but God forbid she should part with her 2,000-watt dryer. Despite Jody's moveable hair salon (lest we need to be glamorous at a moment's notice), we were actually on a budget. So we hitchhiked east, to Prague.
Our first ride was with Gerald, a terminator-glasses-wearing German truck driver who spoke no English. Our next ride was with two American soldiers driving a red sports car. Although travel-weary, grungy, and decidedly uncoifed, we agreed to go with them to a disco. We fell asleep in their car and awoke the next morning, only to be dropped off on some rural highway median. We must have looked quite a wreck with particularly bad hair, because two German nuns took pity on us only minutes later. (At least they wear habits to compensate for bad hair days.) They drove us to the Czech border, and although I highly doubt we looked malnourished, they even gave us some yogurt and bread for breakfast.
The perfectly coifed pair in Prague
We thanked them, got out, and walked the few hundred yards to the border. I must have had more of a spring in my step, or maybe it was just that my backpack was lighter without the hair dryer, but walking ahead, I noticed two cute guys in line standing near their car.
