I find fashion to be endlessly entertaining. When you live as long as I have, you have seen many trends come and go. For instance I’m always amused when I see people of every size walking round in tight clothing. Were she still alive my mother would be shocked and making comments. As I was growing up, at most clothing might be tight around the bust and waist, but not anywhere else. Too, as if pregnancy was not quite proper, one wore tent like garments as soon as there was a bulge. Ball gowns were bolstered with stays and wedding gowns were voluminous and relatively modest.
Recently I was looking at a pretty formal gown in a consignment store and it brought back memories of ones I used to wear back in the days when formal dances were a part of my life. I didn’t go to a school that featured proms, however there was an annual series of dances held by a woman who ran a dancing school for grade school boys and girls. These dances were an extension of her classes and held for high school age students in the area.
She had very strict rules for the young ladies who wanted to participate. Gowns had to be of a certain type, and nothing too bare or plunging was permitted. This starchy New England matron who ran the dances was also particular about our weight. My dear mother put me on a diet that summer so I would conform to the ideal held out for those who wished to attend. “I don’t want any wallflowers at my dances,” she was known to say.
The dress I was looking in the consignment store at was a strapless, full length gown. The skirt was fairly narrow. I smiled to myself, remembering the hoop skirt that went under one of my first full skirted formals. How difficult it was to sit down without the darn thing flying up in the air, taking my skirt with it, revealing my gartered stockings to the world. There were other uncomfortable petticoats, starched and stiff that came later. My mother would laugh and say sometimes one must suffer for beauty. Although she wore a girdle for years and tried to get me to wear one, I refused to.
Along with hoop skirts and starched petticoats, no one born today or even many born a while ago know what a test pattern is, nor has seen one. When my parents got our first TV, there were no programs before around 4 o’clock in the afternoon and after around midnight at night. All that was on the screen otherwise was a black and white test pattern from the different TV stations.
There were no color TVs. Nor was there color programming! Movies were shown on Sunday afternoons and I remember before we got our TV, the joy of watching them at a friend’s home. In those days a comic book was ten cents, and I wasn’t permitted to buy one but I could read hers. Having lived a long life, I can recall much that no longer exists except in the museum of memory. It’s fun to visit there occasionally, though I’d never want to live there all the time.
Most children have no concept of time and little to no understanding of loss, not to mention the concept of “goodbye.” Ironically however, one of the first things a mother teaches her baby is to wave “bye bye.” When we put them to bed for the night we are teaching them about leaving and being left. The first skill a child learns in the high chair is to drop things over the edge. At one level the life of any human being from birth onward is one long saying of goodbye.
In days gone by when my children were small and Christmas was something of a big production, by the evening of the 25th everyone was satisfied to play with his or her toys, eat the festival leftovers and chill out. It was then that I would take my guitar in hand and drive with it to the Beverly hospital to play for the patients. I was a regular volunteer there so I would don my pink volunteer jacket and go around to the wards and private rooms to play Christmas music together with my usual folk tunes.
My mother grew vegetables and fruit and canned them for use during the winter and spring. I remember her on the hot days in August and September, lifting the glass jars out of their steaming water bath in the large canning pot in our small kitchen. Once cooled, the jars went to line shelves in the basement. During winter and spring she had all kinds of vegetables and fruit to choose from. Eating locally was common in those days because food that grew in faraway places was not available. Canning diminished with the advent of freezer chests. Consuming food in New England that was grown in Mexico, China or other distant countries was unheard of.
As a child I so looked forward to school vacation and the freedom it brought from discipline, homework and schedules. Whenever weather permitted, my time was spent out doors wandering around the rather large property where my parents and I lived. It belonged to my Great Aunt Alice, whose father had built the grand house she lived in now, as well as the cottage originally intended for the gardener. That was where I, and later on my brothers and sister lived. There was a broad, open field to roam in, trees to climb, and a small marsh bounded by a dyke that kept out most of the distant seawater.
On the TV Screen pages turned in a photograph album as the weekly TV show called I remember Mama opened. Each week the daughter told a story from her growing up years, about her mother and her family. Although the show was set in 1910, the themes were timeless and had much to do with family interactions and behaviors. Though I do not remember any particular episodes, I do remember watching it with pleasure. The mother in the story was resourceful and clever, much like mine.
Pujakins 