Orange hair made its first appearance in my family on the day I was born. There had been one other redhead but hers was of the auburn variety. And she was fifteen years older. And she lived in another state.

If I have it right, I chose to come to earth bedecked in orange hair. I thought it beautiful when I saw it hanging on the rack in the Hair Shop up where human souls go to be skin and hair infested. Boy was I in for a shock.

My mother tried to leave me on the make up counter in Daytons when I was a newborn, but my dad called her back to retrieve me. My brother wasn't too fond of the attention generated by the shock of carrots emanating from my scalp and proceeded to nickname me Woodie after that cantankerous of all woodpeckers. He compounded the insult by pointing at me and intimating, "hahahaHAha, hahahaHAha, HA ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

I knew no other redheads much less orange heads and had no tribe in which to blend. So it was that I found refuge in books, shaping my identity around the likes of Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables.

Reading these books, I discovered my identity. I was to be eccentric, sensitive, artistic, a writer, and a tomboy. Plus, I had to make several attempts at removing my freckles via either freckle cream ordered from a catalog or lemon juice, squeezed from a lemon and applied when my mother was not looking. Oh, and despite mother describing how she watched me being born because she had a revolutionary epidural instead of a spinal, I knew I had to be adopted. All redheaded girls in books were orphans.

Cissie in Peachtree Island was an orphan.
Anne of Green Gables was an orphan.
"Little Orphan Annie" was an orphan.
Pippi Longstocking was not an orphan, but she lived alone because her father was always at sea and her mother was dead.

In fifth grade, I read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and an entirely new world opened to me. I discovered that redheads could be smart and loving even though others coined us "spacey". Meg was smart and she loved so much that she saved her father simply by loving him. I longed to save my father by loving him and felt this was possible because after all, we were fellow redheads.

As I grew up, I discovered that whenever a mischievous boy represented a product in a t.v. commercial, he had red hair. I was a bit surprised that Dennis the Menace was a blond, because he fit all the qualities of a redhead.

Of course with my Lutheran upbringing, I quickly discovered that Mary Magdalene had red hair which added the sinner label to my growing list of redheaded characteristics.

As I aged, I politely ignored the adulteress label. To this day, I prefer to think of Jesus and Mary Magdalene as married. Her seven demons I consider seven chakra challenges that led her towards enlightenment and allowed her to connect with Jesus. I guess the smart label activated my brain, allowing me to challenge some of the misconceptions surrounding historical stereotyping like wanton sex.

Now that I am old enough to appreciate the beauty of red hair, it's transitioned to salt and pepper. Oh well. There are stereotypes of the elderly waiting to be explored.