You’re never too old to have new experiences.
My latest new experience has been spending time with two 14-year-old females, one of them GD#5.
There is a decade of differences between these two and my older granddaughters.
For one thing, they have electronic gadgets. They text, take photos to put on Facebook, and play games or watch movies on their computers.
They colour their hair. Frequently.
GD#5’s hair is reddish brown. Her first tint job turned it a burgundy shade. She says it was pink. She and friend combined forces for the latest colouring episode. GD went for navy blue. Friend, who is blond, went for sky blue. Now the colour is washing out, GD’s hair is several interesting shades, including green, and has grey streaks. It should be lovely for her school pictures this week.
Her friend’s blue hair went greyish. When I came home one day she was sitting in what was my husband’s chair, just the top of her grey head showing over the back. It did gave me a bit of a start.
(Hair was an issue with our boys, too, but in the 1970s it was about length.)
And GD#5 has a part-time job. Her older cousins did not have jobs at age 14.
Some things don’t change. Girls, even little ones, still giggle, squeal and screech when they get together.
Sometimes they have strange tastes in food. Clothes are still an obsession, as is jewelry, but styles change, of course. While a number of her friends have various body parts pierced, so far GD has only holes in her ears. Her favourite earrings are big blue things that appear to be attached with small daggers. She also wears bracelets, many she makes herself.
And she thinks I must be colour blind. She insists her hair was pink, never burgundy.
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune.
She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.