unusual grooming

Right now, my browser has three Wikipedia tabs open:

I am nothing if not an eclectic gal.

The photo above is from about the time that I started attending Cotillion training in Phoenix. I wore white gloves, learned how to converse in high-brow small talk with boys, and danced the foxtrot, waltz, hustle, and Mexican Hat Dance. If I had stayed in Phoenix, I would have come out as a debutante at the St. Luke’s Ball.

In this picture, I am wearing some kind of Sorority sleeping garment, origin unknown. I am unusually skinny here, as my mother made me go to Weight Watchers at the age of 9.

What? You, too? Crazy!

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2 Comments

  1. Uncle Shar on June 21, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    I honestly thought that was a photo of some cheering little girl down on Main St in Ventura, circa right now. I read on cuz I wanted to see why you made her get on her knees for a photo. Hmmm, all my young photos are in black and white, or in vivid color but with a donkey or buck teeth. Not a donkey with buck teeth, I’m speaking of my own buck teeth.
    Anywho, my mom made my sister, oh, wait, my sister volunteered, wanted to go, to Sears Roebuck Charm School. I came to call it Sears Easy Method Charm School, a play on Sears’ Revolving credit plan. Maybe you are too young to remember the Easy Method, but in my house it was hilarious for the little tomboy to point out that my awkward sister was in Sears Easy Method Charm School, and this in the same season as when she was dating up by going out with the manager of the Village Inn Pancake House, which also had dinner entrees. He rode a motorcycle and had a mint green leisure suit that he filled out nicely in the chest-al and package-al arenas. I don’t mean to brag, hope I don’t sound conceited, but my sister graduated at the top of the Charm class, I believe it was based on her ability to sport a French Twist hairdo while getting her Holly Hobby Pinafore hiked over it with a minimum of wisps. She could also rifle through her change purse while wearing wrist length white gloves.
    This was all in Kansas, and I believe it has served her well, as she still lives there and is married. Not to the Village Inn manager, though. I think she might still have 4 steak knives from there, though.



  2. Carol on June 24, 2008 at 2:42 am

    How funny – this brought back a flood of memories because my mother also made me go to Sears Charm School. It was in Canada so we, of course, didn’t have the “Easy Method” we had to endure the tough brass knuckle, plain ole “charm school”. My older sister was wearing make-up which we think she learned to apply it from either Bozo or Ronald McDonald so the theory was I couldn’t wear make up until I “graduated”. I couldn’t stand it so much that I remember one evening they “punished” me for my lack of participation and made me go in this little room and iron the clothes for the fashion show all by myself. Little did I know I would still be doing that decades later and, still, with no charm.