While chatting with my friend Carolyn on the phone the other day, the subject of endearing old practices and traditions arose. Somehow, it came around to the smell and feel of freshly washed and ironed sheets, and how nice it feels to just snuggle into them. Since we lived with my grandparents for a little while when I was very young, I do remember my grandmother’s maid, Lillian, ironing them. I learned how to iron from Lillian, and she would let me stand on a box and iron pillowcases while she prepared other clothes to be ironed. She ironed everything from table linens, sheets and my grandfather’s dress shirts, khakis, boxer shorts, my grandmother’s nighties, to hankies and even the baby’s diapers. I must have been about five years old. Remembering just how nice they smelled, I tried to iron sheets after I married, but I just got too busy working and taking care of a baby. I did iron the pillowcases for a while; and that really made a difference. The sheets could just be wrinkled. Thinking about all of this, I thought of all the items that were ironed and starched, and then remembered all the old comforts that are now settling on my shoulders like a favorite old bathrobe.
There are certainly wonderful old comforts to be reviewed, but I started remembering way back when some things were just plain uncomfortable or un-cool. I recalled net and crinoline petticoats.
As little girls are from the very beginning, we were very fashion conscious from kindergarten up. Fashion and beauty were to be attained at any expense from then on. Crinoline and net petticoats were a big fashion statement, and we’d starch them in heavy starch, and then lay them out on a flat surface on a sheet to dry. Once dried, we could wear them under our fullest skirts to fluff them out, or under a circular felt skirt with a poodle appliquéd on the front.…Very fashionable in the 50’s and 60’s. The really bad part is that they were so uncomfortable as hell to sit on, not to mention that we didn’t have air conditioning in our schools then. We would sit on those petticoats in the sweltering heat of the classroom, only to get up with them stuck to the backs of our legs. Next trip to the restroom we peeled them off our legs and tried to fluff them out once more. Oh, the work ... the agony!
Crisp white blouses were starched to wear with the full skirts; and gym clothes were another couple of things that were a bit chaffing; and after one ran around the gym or played basketball or volleyball enough to break a sweat. The stuff just stuck to you.
We little girls showed extreme interest in shoes even back then, and we knew what we wanted. Saddle oxfords were high fashion when Mom was in high school, but she made us wear those late 30’s and early 40’s “fashion statement saddle oxfords” until we were in junior high school. My sisters and I hated them. We wanted cute shoes like the other girls wore to school; the black patent Mary-Janes, and later in middle school, the “flats” and penny loafers.
Mom would buy us the Buster Brown brand or saddle oxfords, and then she would swear we would thank her later for our perfect feet and nice straight toes. And, according to Mom, you didn’t need to polish your saddle shoes very often. It was fashionable to let them get worn looking. I didn’t think that was right and was always polishing mine. If I had to wear them, then they would look as new as I could make them look, that is, until I outgrew them. But, out growing these shoes took a long time, as Mom would buy them two sizes to long for me, in anticipation of my growth, and the new ones always rubbed blisters on my heels. With these, she bought a box of band-aids. What a bonus.
In about the 6th grade, I started bugging Mom to let me shave my legs. "No!” She said. “You’re too young!” She said I couldn’t’ until I was 14. Well, that was just forever! So, with that, I just quit asking and just gave myself permission to shave my legs during the summer before I entered junior high school. I was sure she wouldn’t notice.
So, I crept into the upstairs bathroom and closed the door. There was a razor in the cabinet that my older sister had used. I lathered up my right leg with the bar of Palmolive soap and started out by taking a big swipe from the ankle of my right leg. In the process, I cut a nice, neat slice from ankle, almost to my knee. Geeeeeezzzze! How was I going to explain that? And, since that was the first pass at my leg with the razor, the job never got finished. I was much too busy trying to stop the bleeding. It looked like I was going to need stitches, or at least butterfly sutures. At any rate, since I didn’t ask (because the answer was going to be “no”), I got in a lot of trouble and given extra chores to do; and of course, GROUNDED!!!! The subject was never brought up again, and I just became very careful about shaving. I learned early that it’s painful trying to be gorgeous and fashionable.
I finally reached junior high school and was allowed to wear flats and penny loafers. I never had to wear saddle oxfords again! With the flats, you needed hose. A girl needed all the right paraphernalia to hold up the hose, a garter belt, or a girdle. I guess nothing comes easy. Panty hose were still very new on the market, and still being perfected. You needed at least one back up pair of hose, because inevitably you’d get a run in one. I learned to use clear nail polish to stop a run. I was getting a real fashion education.
Penny Loafers required crew socks. This was really a problem, because there were three of us girls in high school or junior high school at once. We learned early to try to do our own laundry separately from everyone else’s. Mom tried to mark all of our clothes with color codes. No one seemed to take the color coding seriously. If your socks got tossed into the laundry for the “general population” the crew socks were as good as gone; the general population being eleven of us kids and Mom and Dad. Possession was the general rule for the general population laundry. ALL socks from the general population laundry got tossed into the sock bag. The sock bag was actually a navy-blue canvas bag that used to fit on the back of one of the old strollers. If your socks got chunked into that bag, you might as well just kiss them good-bye. You’d never see/match your socks again, unless they were on another sibling. Most times I’d end up wearing the revered hose with my loafers, which worked, but wasn’t as cool as it was when Mom wore loafers.
Makeup was a whole different matter. Dad was a real watch dog about this. He’d send us back in the house to “Wipe off at least half of that! You look like a clown!” On those days, we were usually late for school. From those days forward, I wore makeup, shaved, wore penny loafers, flats and hose, started coloring my chestnut-colored hair and used hairspray. After a while, I got pretty good at all of that, and it became just a part of who I was.
Now, there is a paradox in all of this. As I got older, I have noticed that wearing less makeup looks much better; and shoes that are more the shape of my feet are much more comfortable. I actually had a pair of Earth Shoes for years; and wish I still had them. The picture below is exactly the style I had to wear with my hip-slung bell bottoms and Tees.
When I lost all of my hair in chemotherapy, I was amazed at the color that grew back. It was a color it had never been, and it had literally been every color under the rainbow. It came back in black and silver. That was quite a switch from the natural chestnut color I vaguely remember before I started coloring it when I was about 26. I found that, not only can I live without coloring my hair, but that I prefer to leave it alone. I am very comfortable with it.
I look for comfortable clothing in the department stores. Sometimes it’s really hard to find jeans and slacks that come to the waist. I asked a clerk what I was supposed to do with the muffin top that bulged out of the top of the pants cut below the belly button. Blouses must be loose with three-quarter sleeves, and just the right neckline. I love my clogs, crocks and walking shoes. My favorites are still my flip-flops. However, I still have a few very classic dress shoes that I just refuse to get rid of; just not very many places to wear them. I guess it’s just the girl in me ... hanging on to them.
So, I’m getting to where comfort overrides style, but I’ve developed my own style over the years. No one noticed or cared when I quit wearing mascara 10 years ago. It saves me money and several minutes putting on a face in the morning; and that’s been pared down to just the very basics. I love dressing up in comfort and looking good at the same time. Why didn’t I think of that years ago?
I guess the older you get, the less you depend on what others think. It’s called having a mind of your own. When you worry about what someone else thinks of you, you’re just handing them a lot of power.
And guess what? I washed all the pillowcases and ironed them today. They smell heavenly and provide a wonderful memory and comfort of long ago. I might just do that again. So, I’m all about comfort now, and I’m off to watch the “eye-lid movies”! (Dad used to say that.) with my head on a freshly washed and ironed pillowcase. Nighty-night y’all! Sweet dreams!
