Myself at Fifty. an Inventory

Beginning of article

let us start with the head * yes of course the head ever full of fancies and the hair on the head * white * scraggly * thinning white early * never any temptation to dye it so no worry now about when and how to stop a subject of conversation * a source of folklore the legend of how my grandfather's hair turned white overnight when he was nineteen as he rode through the night out Longreach way to reach a brother dying of snakebite scraggly always never a hairdresser who understood its limpness and cowlicks apart from the Adelaide genius to whom I said * Make me look like Jane Fonda in Klute and she did what hairdresser now would've heard of Jane Fonda let alone Klute thinning now * so the pink scalp shows

then the face * lovely at times * but not always * ever the nose always too red and now the grimness growing upon it the soft cheeks remain * the secret of them Oil of Ulan family lore …