My mother, Geraldine O’Brien DeMark, was without doubt the hairdo queen of Racine, Wisconsin. Her hair was the eighth wonder of the world, a gravity-defying bouffant that she kept up her entire life, an amazing, silver-tinted cotton candy cone of hair. Her beehive could hypnotize anyone, as if magic powers swirled around inside of it, containing a trap door that you could fall through and be transported to a different epoch of time and space. I know because one time it happened to me. That’s how powerful my mom’s hair was.

My mom’s hair never took a vacation. It was always there, something you could depend on. In fact, she had her hair done up perfectly three days before she died because you never know whom you might meet on the other side.

The Hair Queen.

I always thought my mom was the missing link in the famed Rat Pack of the ’50s and ’60s. She would’ve fit right in with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson and the rest of them, sipping highballs and singing all night. She always wore colorful costume jewelry, fashionable dresses and serious make-up. Definitely the life of the party.

In our neighborhood in the summer, my parents’ friends would gather in our kitchen and drink beer and highballs. My mom possessed a beautiful voice and would strum a ukulele, harmonizing with Bob Smith and the gang on songs like “Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey,” “For the Good Times” and songs by Patsy Cline.

They’d keep us kids up half the night with their laughing and singing and I didn’t really mind because they were having so much fun. Kind of made me think getting old wouldn’t be so bad.

But one thing my mom was not was a naturalist. We never camped out once and didn’t take walks in the woods, either. My brother once asked her why we never camped.

My mom said, “Well, we never had picnics, either.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I hate bugs. All bugs, Always have. That’s why we eat indoors. Can’t stand any of those damn bugs.”

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When I was about 30 I came home for a visit. My parent had an air conditioner in a kitchen window and someone had haphazardly tossed a blanket over it and never removed it for months. A beehive grew inside of the blanket and one day a couple bees flew through the air conditioner and stung my mother, completely terrorizing her.

“There’s bees in this house. You’ve got to kill them! You’ve got to destroy that hive and kill every single one of them!”

“How?”

“Go to the hardware store and get some poison spray or something, but you must kill them. I can’t live like this!!!”

I enlisted my friend Andy in the battle of the bees. We bought a can of bee death spray at the hardware store. Andy creeped up to the hive with a rake and I carried the spray that was supposed to shoot out at least 20 feet. We were both terrified. When Andy lifted the blanket, a big swarm of angry bees came flying towards us as I backpedaled and madly sprayed the poison at them. We ran around the house and burst through the front door. My mom was there, wringing her hands.

“Did you kill them? Did you?!”

“Yes, I think so.”

“What do you mean ‘You think so.’ Did you kill all of them?”

“Yes we did.”

“Then BRING ME THE DEAD BODIES!”

That was my mom: Hairdo Queen and anti-naturalist supreme.

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One time when my mom was in her mid-’40s, we were sitting in our family room, fire blazing in the fireplace, watching Johnny Carson. My mom was smoking a long Parliament, her hair all done up, lying on the couch in her leopard print bathrobe and matching slippers, looking like a lounge lizard version of Olivia DeHaviland.

“Jeff, do you have any of that marijuana in the house?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to try some.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. I want to see what the big deal is. Do you have some?”

“I have some upstairs.”

“Then please get it for me.”

“I don’t want to be the one to give it to you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you never know how someone might react the first time they get stoned. You might freak out and I don’t want to be the one responsible.”

‘Oh come on. Don’t be silly. I’ve been drinking for 25 years and I’ve never freaked out.”

“Marijuana’s different. Let’s say you get really out there and I have to bring you to the hospital. Can you imagine the Journal-Times headline, ‘Son of local dentist arrested for getting mother high on marijuana?’ That wouldn’t be good.”

She puffed on her Parliament.

“Would you please go upstairs and get your marijuana for your mother?”

Reluctantly, I went and got my brown Mexican pot and when I returned my 16-year-old sister Maria walked in the door.

“Put the marijuana away.”

She looked at my sister and in her gravest “I’m your mother voice,” said, “Maria, what would you think if your mother smoked marijuana?”

“I don’t care.”

“Jeff, roll it up.”

She took a few drags as if she were smoking a cigarette.

“I don’t feel anything. I knew this was dumb. I’ve always wondered why you kids just don’t have a couple drinks and laugh instead of getting high and sitting around like potted plants. I knew this would be boring.”

“Mom, you’re not doing it right. You have to hold the smoke in for a few seconds before blowing it out.”

She took two big hits and on the second one her cheeks blew out like a big puffer fish and as she exhaled she burst into laughter.

“Oh my god this is what it’s like? No wonder you kids like it!”

She lit up one of her Parliaments and settled back into a corner of the couch, her blue eyes flashing.

“You know this cigarette is so heavy. I never realized how heavy cigarettes are. I don’t even know how I can lift this.”

“Mom, it’s still just a cigarette.”

“Oh that’s right, it’s the marijuana, isn’t it?” she said, then let out more wild peals of laughter.

She took a couple more puffs of her cigarette and whispered to me, “I am so small that you could put me in your hand, carry me upstairs and drop me on my pillow, couldn’t you?”

“No, I can’t. You’re still 120 pounds, mom.”

“Oh that’s right.” And she howled with laughter again.

My sister said, “Mom you’re got to keep it down. You might wake Dad up and that wouldn’t be good.”

Suddenly she was feeling like we did as teenagers, afraid Dad would catch her doing something wrong.

“Oh no, he can’t know about this.’

I poured her a glass of gin on the rocks and said, “If dad comes down just say you had a little too much to drink.”

“Oh yes, good idea. I think if he smoked some of this his head might explode in a hundred pieces.”

After a couple hours of this, she practically floated up the stairs to bed.

The next day we were wondering how she’d feel. Would she be spaced out, depressed or happy?

Mid-morning she descended the stairs in a new red dress with a wide black belt and her hair and make-up done just right, like a kabuki mask, as always.

“How do you feel, Mom?”

“Oh, I feel really good, a little ticklish inside but really good. What I’d really like is to hear some music.”

I went over the stereo console and put on the greatest hits of Patsy Cline.

“Oh, that’s just what I want to hear.”

She began gliding around the living room, snow falling outside, singing “I Fall to Pieces.”

It may be just my imagination, but my mom looked lighter that day, not light enough for me to carry her in my hand, but at ease and beautiful and about as happy as I’d ever seen her as she danced around the living room singing in her beautiful voice,

“I fall to pieces
Each time I see you again
I fall to pieces
How can I be just your friend?”

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Jeff DeMark is a writer and musician.