Joan Betty Henderson Johnson

Who am I?

I'm Georgie Johnson.

That's all.

Not only did they straighten it, but they finger-waved it.

So they would have waves in their hair.

I started working when I was like six years old.

Six years old, yeah.

So Johnny and I started going up and down the back stairs of the building we lived in and going in the garbage cans and picking up the milk bottles, the paper, the rags.

For every pound of paper, we got, I think, a penny.

The only thing that got us some real money was when we took the tinfoil that was in the wrappers of the cigarette packages.

It took a long time, but when we got, say, a pound of that tinfoil, we'd get some real money from the junk man for that.

I took two years of chemistry in high school.

When I looked at his face, he looked so dejected that it just popped out of my mouth.

What the hell is wrong with you?

I went over.

to his shop and shocked when I saw what was going on inside.

He had four chairs.

They were always full.

And these guys were working like crazy to get this product in and out of the hair don't, the people they were working on.

It was obvious to me when I saw the product, the way it was separated,