In August, Bonnie Stenberg will remove her business license from where it has hung for 45 years.

The framed document, now faded and streaked with brown tinges, was issued to Stenberg in 1961.

The owner/operator of Bonnie's Dash Point Beauty Salon has decided to retire her scissors and convert her shop, located adjacent to her home behind the Lobster Shop restaurant, into a rental unit. Her daughter-in-law's mother will assume tenancy of the compact four-room beach cottage mid-September.

"All my ladies have died!" rued Stenberg, her vibrant red hair flashing in the sun, sitting under the umbrella on the small patio in front of the shop with her fianc/e, Ralph.

"And with people washing their hair every day now and today's low-maintenance styles, there is just isn't enough business.... women don't come in for a regular weekly or bi-weekly appointment like they did before."

With the closing of Stenberg's shop, Dash Point residents will lose a decades old gathering spot. Stenberg remembered how busy her Fridays and Saturdays were in the 60s and 70s, when she'd work on bouffant after beehive, up to 20 per day, in preparation to countless dates and dances.

"'I've had such loyal customers, the same faces, and heads of hair, year after year," said Stenberg with a Southern accent and quick wit. "Now they are gone."

Trim and stylish in summer whites, Stenberg is in her seventies and says that none of her sons, 13 grandchildren or two great-grandchildren will ever see her with gray hair.

"I believe in coloring, and keeping yourself up," Stenberg enthused.

She and Ralph plan to spend more time at their retreats in Packwood and Tokeland, but Stenberg will still count Dash Point as her primary residence, as she has since her second husband, George Stenberg, introduced her to his hometown.

Bonnie Densmore was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, graduating from high school in 1948 and business school in 1949. She and a girlfriend moved to Louisville, Kentucky in search of work and it was there that Bonnie met and married a young soldier from Fort Knox. Six months later he was killed in combat in Korea, leaving Bonnie a widow at age 20.

Devastated, she enrolled in the civil service and was sent to Japan with other young women to work as military secretaries.

"The other gals liked to go into Tokyo for R&R, but I preferred the countryside, it was so rural in those days, I loved riding my bike around in the fresh air," remembered Stenberg.

One night she accompanied friends to a military club and set eyes on George Stenberg, a navy man stationed at Atsugi.

"It was just like a movie, we saw each other across the crowded room...he came over to me, asked my number and a date the very next night," said Stenberg. They were together until George passed away in 1996.

A member of one of the first families to settle in Dash Point at the turn of the century, George brought his bride to Washington State and purchased two houses on the beach from a woman who was a hairdresser, and Bonnie decided to become a beautician herself and open the smaller unit up as a salon. Her father-in-law carved her a cheerful wooden sign, she got a couple of dryer chairs, and Bonnie was in business.

"It was a good life. I could always be available to my four boys, they always knew where to find me," said Stenberg. "And it's such a nice place, being on the beach. I knew everybody in the neighborhood. And they knew me."

Asked what her romance secrets are, she laughed and said, "Oh, men have always liked me a lot. I'm easy to get along with."

Stenberg says that while she'll miss the camaraderie, she's been thinking about closing her business for a while, to the protests of her few remaining customers. One of them is her 52-year-old son, Van, whose head has never been touched by another barber.

"I told him, one of these days I'm gonna start charging you!"