The Discovery of Eyebrows

The Discovery of Eyebrows

I have to start from the beginning for you to get the full effect of this story.  The Williams men have never had an abundance of facial hair, but when Robert and I were young, he kind of lost more than the average Williams.  He had this old Dodge Charger that was kind of rust colored.  Almost looked like “The General Lee” from the Dukes of Hazard, but without the stickers and the horn.  Anyway, he was constantly adjusting on the carburetor thinking he could make the car run better and faster, you know the typical young male “fast car obsession”  

Well, he made me sit in the driver’s seat and was working on it, and yelled for me to “crank” the car.  When I turned the key, the carburetor back fired, and a ball of fire whooshed past his head. 

It singed his hair, which was kind of long at the time, but burned his eyebrows completely off!  The mustache was a site too.  I know what you’re thinking….Karen and Fire!  But this was totally NOT my fault.  I turned the key just like I was asked!  I naturally laughed my butt off when he came out from under the hood looking like the coyote after he had blown himself up with an ACME product. Let’s leave it with the fact that his hair was fixable, but the eyebrows never grew back!  He still blames me??

Now I can begin the story of the discovery of eyebrows!  When Bobby was between two and three years old; he spent a great deal of time with Donna and I….and Dad’s pigs.  You see we would have to go sit behind Winn Dixie in the evening to get produce and the leftover stuff from the deli.  Dad had worked it out to get all of this pig food by giving the managers a hog each when they were big enough.  He had a LOT of pigs!

One evening we were sitting in the truck behind the store listening to the radio…waiting on the slop and playing with Bobby.  He would go between my lap and Donna’s lap asking every question that he could think to ask….then want to know WHY for whatever answer he was given.  He was an inquisitive child, but was also apparently very observant as well.  He must have noticed that his Dad did not have eyebrows.  He realized that evening that Donna did.

He was standing in the front seat and was facing Donna talking to her, when he gasped and traced her eyebrows with his finger.  He said “Poor Donna”….she was like what?  He just kept checking out her eyebrows and repeating poor Donna when she realized he had never noticed eyebrows.  She laughed at him and told him; look your Mom has them too. 

He flew from her side of the truck to mine so he could inspect my face.  He did the same thing to me.  “Poor Mama”  I laughed at him too, but told him he had eyebrows.  He shook his head and disagreed with me.  He then went straight to the review mirror so he could check out his.  Unfortunately, Bobby’s eyebrows were so blond you couldn’t see them.  That is when it really got funny.  He argued with us that he did NOT have eyebrows.  It was us who were “Poor”. 

Needless to say when he got home he wanted to check out everyone’s eyebrows.  He honestly thought he and his father were the normal ones and everyone else had a deformity.  He was a hoot to raise…he is still a hoot…just a really big one.   When he was around that age and didn’t get his way, he would tell me “wait until I get big and you get little” and he would do whatever.  I told him it didn’t work that way…turns out he is big and next to him I am little. 

Karen White Williams