My Looks

I wore my long hair in braids most of the time.  Mother liked fixing my hair in long banana curls, but I hated the look.  First, I had to wear rags to tie the curls in when my hair was wet.  Then, she spent HOURS coaxing the curls into the long curls which felt so weird when I walked---bouncing up and down like springs.  My head was very “tender” so I didn’t really like anyone brushing or combing it.  The nice think about braids was they didn’t have to be combed every day.  Mom could undo them, and then get the wisps and stray hairs back into the strand and re-braid it.  When I was a little older and wanted to be fancy, I’d put them on top of my head and add flowers.

Although there are some photos of me with pants on, I usually wore dresses (with leggings underneath if it was cold). I remember I got a new plaid dress to start school, a Christmas dress and an Easter dress.  My grandmother Wicker usually made my dresses, but we went to Famous-Barr, scouted out the latest fashions and copied them.  My grandmother Long bought me fancy dresses when she was alive---I think I have one of those dresses which was pink taffeta.  I know I have one of my plaid dresses because Becky wore it for 1950’s day at school.  My favorites were dresses with pinafores—white ruffly aprons worn over a dress.  I’m sure there were practical reasons at one time for pinafores, but WHITE, RUFFLY (which had to be starched and ironed) wasn’t really that practical for a child

 My play shoes had been my school or dress shoes which just got old---we didn’t really wear sneakers or have athletic shoes.  Our pediatrician said Keds were bad for our feet.  So, we always had good shoes---I’m sure if we had clothing allowances, our shoes were most of that allowance.  Although I have bad feet, now, it is definitely something genetic and has nothing to do with wearing ill-fitting or poorly supported shoes.  I can recall going to the shoe shops which had a wonderful machine---you could stand with your feet in the machine and SEE if the shoes fit---X-rays!  I shudder thinking of how many times I x-rayed my feet for the fun of it.

The shoe stores were wonderful---they always had little toy (a clicker or kazoo) or balloons to give away.  I still love the smell of new shoes.  I once even won a new pair of shoes from a coloring contest.  Mind you, it wasn’t art, but how well you could color their pre-printed drawing.  It was one of my proudest moments as a child.