She Still Gets My Business

In the mid sixties the women went to the beauty parlor to get their hair “set” about once a week. The ladies who fixed the hair wore smocks over their shirts and usually wore white shoes. The men went to the barber shop. The men got a haircut about once a month but they visited the barber more often than that so they could hang out with the guys and shoot the bull. Men sure didn’t go to beauty parlors to get their haircut.

At least that was true where I grew up until a lady by the name of Willorene took styling hair to the next level.


Willorene was an entrepreneur. If there ever was an entrepreneur in Reynolds, GA, she was it. She remodeled an old building and ended up with a very large upscale hair salon with waiting area and all. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing in the mid sixties when she made that bold move. She may have had the first upscale hair salon in Georgia. If not, I’m sure it was the first in middle Georgia.

Up until then, beauty parlors consisted of small little rooms that smelled like “permanents” and was crammed with chairs and those hair dryers the little ladies pulled down over their heads.

The Beauty Nook, as it was called, was decorated to the nines. I still remember the colors – gold and green. And the gorgeous girls that worked there dressed alike and wore gold and/or green short koolots. I probably misspelled that word but it was the little short shorts that looked like mini skirts.

Those outfits just killed me.

I never saw one of the applications Willorene used for the girls to apply for a job there. But somewhere it had to be in writing that an applicant had to be very cute to be hired. My goodness there were some good looking, sexy gals who worked in that place. It was the kind of place that a young boy with raging harmones liked to hang out, I can tell you that.

But more than that, the Beauty Nook drew customers from all over middle Georgia. People drove as far as 40 miles to get their hair done there and that was unheard of in those days.

And they also styled men’s hair before it was stylish. Think about it – why would a guy go sit in a barber shop with a bunch of old guys when he could go to the Beauty Nook and look at all these gorgeous girls? Not hard to figure that out.

She sure got my business.

Willorene, the entrepreneur, made a ton of money. In those days she was a woman business person in a man’s world. But she outworked the men and made more money than most. They worked long hours usually starting at 5AM on the weekends and worked well into the night. Whatever she made, she earned it.

Kathy Underwood washed hair at the Beauty Nook when I was in high school. It was when she was working there that I started noticing her. The cute girl in the sexy outfit got my attention. I ended up marrying this Beauty Nook girl.

After many years of working herself to death, Willorene finally left the upscale beauty business and went in the financial services business in Atlanta. She has done as well in that field as she did in the styling business.


This weekend she and her husband, Jerry, stopped by our house. I had called her so she could help me get my new grandbaby set up with a mutual fund. This lady entrepreneur reminded me that time and interest and a little money can produce some amazing results.

I have known Willorene all my life. She has definitely earned the right for me to do business with her. It was through her screening of applicants at the Beauty Nook that I found my wife for goodness sakes.

And now little Taylor gets to benefit as well from this lady entrepreneur. If Taylor will leave the little bit of money I invested for her alone for the next 60 years or so, she will be a millionaire.

Willorene was not wearing her gold koolots Saturday.

But she still gets my business.