Chicago remains as one of the most underrated teams in the NFL, and we are trying to figure out what else it has to do to get some respect. The Bears are at 7-3 and are atop the NFC Central, tied with the Green Bay Packers. They have won three in a row as well, and are coming off of their most complete game of the season, a 16-0 romp of the Miami Dolphins down at Sun Life Stadium. The big problem that the Bears have right now is that two of their losses this year have come at home, and both were complete duds against the Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks. The offensive line needs a major overhaul right now. The unit is still not opening up holes for RB Matt Forte to run through, marking the second straight year that this group has had this problem. Forte has just four rushing scores on the campaign, and he has 567 yards on 150 carries. RB Chester Taylor is only averaging 2.8 yards per carry as well. The difference has been this Chicago defense, led by LB Brian Urlacher and LB Lance Briggs, who make up one of the most feared linebacking corps in the NFL.
We know that Philadelphia is probably one of the best teams in the league, but going into the Windy City this late in the year is never fun to do. The Bears are good enough to win the Super Bowl this year, and we think that they are going to show it on Sunday by taking down the Eagles.
THE QUEEN OF LOCKS FOR 10 YEARS, MURIEL KENNEDY’S SALON HAS BEEN THE PLACE TO GO FOR NATURAL HAIR CARE here natural hair blogs
The Boston Globe (Boston, MA) December 11, 2005 | Megan Tench, Globe Staff “Who’s next?” shouts Muriel Taylor Kennedy.
It’s a typical Monday at Muriel’s Natural Hair Studio, and Kennedy is holding court.
Customers crammed in the corners of the modestly furnished Dorchester salon have come from as far as the Cape to wait hours for a spot in a stylist’s swivel chair. And here, the specialty is “locks.” One by one, patrons let down their nappy coils to have them tightened, dyed, braided, or cornrowed, an hours-long process to keep them growing healthy and looking fresh.
Kennedy’s work is well known in the city; Mayor Thomas M. Menino recently recognized her as “The Queen of Locks.” A framed certificate, signed by Menino and propped on a rickety display case by the front door, attests to her royal status.
“You, come here,” Kennedy says, pointing to a new customer, her Trinidadian accent echoing over the R&B music pumping softly from a compact disc player.
“Why do you want to lock your hair?” she demands of the startled patron. The small shop, functionally equipped with a few hairdryers, mirrors, and worn black leather chairs, suddenly goes silent.
Frequent customers are used to this kind of blunt questioning; still, they raise their eyebrows and exchange knowing smirks. Kennedy will not touch a client’s hair until she hears that the customer is committed to maintaining the style.
Muriel’s is where hundreds of dreadlocked Bostonians got their start in the world of natural coils and coiffures.
It’s where Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez gets his locks twisted by the stylists, who are known in the hairstyling world as “lockticians.” It’s where judges, police officers, and college students, among others, spend $50 to more than $200 for the expertise and support it takes to embrace a look that in the last 10 years has gone from taboo to trendy.
They wait their turn on a tightly packed row of uncomfortable chairs. They pass the time reading old magazines, chatting, or enjoying the spiced beef patties and ginger tea that street entrepreneurs sell from the trunks of their cars.
Far from the swanky salons on Newbury Street, Kennedy has carved her own niche on Blue Hill Avenue. She has also has a salon in Trinidad, and plans to open another in North Carolina in June.
Her path from homelessness to successful businesswoman was not easy. Kennedy came to Boston at 15 in 1974 a time when racial turmoil over busing erupted on the streets.
She completed high school and earned her cosmetology license, but commuted to New York to get her start in the world of black hair care. She briefly apprenticed at the famed salon Khamit Kinks in New York, where she helped to style stars such as singer Stevie Wonder and supermodel Naomi Campbell.
But then her apartment on Norfolk Street in Roxbury burned down. For a time she was homeless, then on welfare, and styling hair from her kitchen until her father saved enough money to help her open up the salon.
It was then, in 1995, when locks in Boston took off.
“Of course she’s the queen,” says Ulus Martins, 54, a Wareham construction worker, as he patiently waited for a seat under the salon’s bonnet-style hair dryer. “Muriel has been doing locks since locks started locking in Boston.” Black Bostonians, especially in the 1970s, shied away from the hairstyle despite its popularity in cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Atlanta, Martins said.
“If you wore dreadlocks back in the 1970s, you were a marked man in Boston,” Martins says. “You were seen as defiant. You were not accepted. You couldn’t even get a job.” Even today, the hairstyle is often associated with Rastafarians, political protest, and marijuana use, because of the popularity of such dreadlocked reggae musicians as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.
But Kennedy, who opened her tiny salon on Blue Hill Avenue nearly a decade ago, is quick to challenge the old stereotypes.
“Don’t tell me I have dread locks,” she snaps. “There is nothing dreadful about my hair. What I have is locks. There is a difference, you know.” The 48-year-old mother of three, who wears gold earrings, fur- lined winter boots, and locks down to her waist, takes her role as a natural stylist seriously.
She turns up her nose at the beeswax and chemical pomades used by some stylists to forge thick blocks of unruly matted hair into dreadlocks.
“That’s not what I’m about,” she says.
She prefers locks that are hand-rolled, twisted, and intertwined into cylindrical coils of hair. They take most customers six months to a year to grow.
“I always wanted to do it, but I didn’t have the guts,” says JoAnne Casmir, 26, a mental health counselor from Roxbury. She has answered Kennedy’s questions and now is ready to get started. this web site natural hair blogs
“It is a long process,” says locktician Peaches Taylor, Kennedy’s 25-year-old daughter. “But locks are clean and neat. It’s natural hair. Anyone can do it.” Kennedy recently signed over ownership of Muriel’s to her daughter as a birthday present. Taylor’s multicolored spray of knotty coils stands in contrast to her mother’s black twists, but she remains loyal to the queen’s philosophy.
It’s now Taylor’s job to make sure no one leaves Muriel’s studio without understanding the anatomy of a lock, the time it will take, and what the coils should say to the rest of the world. All new customers must agree to read Nekhena Evans’s “Hairlocking: Everything You Need To Know” while they wait.
“I wasn’t sure how people would see it, and how it would be at my job,” says Adrienne Alston, a Boston high school teacher, who started growing locks three years ago. “But, you know what? I got tired of spending all of that money on chemical relaxers, frying up my hair. Now, I see my hair as an acceptance of myself.” Megan Tench can be reached at mtench@globe.com.
Megan Tench, Globe Staff
