1953 summer rolls around to find myself facing the honor of starting school in September, a 7th grade nobody special. Classroom for 7th graders was assigned to the musty basement of our 1928 built A. D. Kelly School at Wallace, Alabama.
My summertime field work gave me time to save my cotton picking money to start the year all dressed in whatever Sears & Roebuck would sell me for my pennies on the dollar along with any Atmore cousins hand-me-downs that may come to me in a care bundle.
Loved those hand-me-downs. Nobody at dear old Wallace had ever seen those cousins wearing my hand-me-downs so I had the choice of preening about in new dresses and bluffing my way through questions like,
" Where did you buy that dress"?
" Uh, I forget at the moment, but it's been worn all summer and doesn't really look new now".
" She is wearing a hand-me-down, cause it's faded".
"Ugh!'
My self esteem took a hit at that loudly whispered remark.
I would lay on the floor for hours looking at the "Sears & Roebuck" catalog trying to narrow down my choices of what I could afford to buy with my money.
I had a problem getting my bottom line to increase because of all the trips to the store at Barnett Crossroads.
I loved to spend my hard earned money on a half pint of hard frozen vanilla icecream right out of the Borden freezer box.
I'd lift the lid to enjoy the escaping frosty vapors that covered my face and arms while I looked around to see all the flavors of ice cream and popsicles down in that ice caked box.
If Daddy was along, I bought a small waxed cardboard box of that goodness to eat with a little wooden paddle, but if I was alone with my brothers, the money was spent on a half pint.
All my own money bought it, all my own selfish way ate it.
Unless,..... everybody else decided to share licks or scoops.
Attention was paid to the sharing.
" You greedy hog, that was a bite, not a lick"
" Shut up, you always the hog".
And so the summer blistered us in the field work, in the creek while swimming and just because the summer was hot and blistering.
The summer between 6th grade and 7th grade a new and wonderful fabric came prancing into my life.
Nylon.
Nylon looked cool but was as hot as Hades.
Beauty always trumps comfort........
Nylon see through dresses started showing around Easter that spring and every girl in the whole of Alabama was wearing those pretty nylon dresses or blouses while sweating like an Auburn cornerback.
New York girls may have been wearing nylon fabric clothing for several years ahead of Alabama girls, but this ain't New York and Alabama ain't for sissy's
I wanted a see through nylon blouse with puffy sleeves so bad I could taste it.
" I'mma get me one from the catalog".
I had plans to wear my beautiful see through nylon blouse for the first day of school with a circular skirt if it took my whole savings.
School usually started around September 1st or there abouts. I would need to send in my order for my new outfit by mid August just to be safe.
I needed at least $7.00 for my blouse and skirt and taxes.
I needed to stop eating half pints of Bordens frozen ice cream if I made the deadline.
Mid August I sat on my coins and hounded Mama into helping me fill out an order form to Sears & Roebuck.
Mr. Ollie Jordan took my money in a couple of bills and most of the balance in loose change.
Mr. Jordan knew us Smith's would be waiting on the front porch when the ordered things from Sears & Roebuck were expected to arrive.
He advised me that the order would come in about another week or so.
A week or so may as well have been Halloween as far as my nerves were concerned.
My money was spent, my nerves were jittery.
He said he would blow the car horn if the package came.
To be on the safe side I sat on the porch constantly for a whole week waiting for my package.
"Oh glory be, I hear Mr. Jordan's horn".
The package had come a wee bit sooner than expected and I had been in the garden helping Mama gather some late crowder peas.
Mama said,
"Go".
I did.
I grabbed the brown double ply paper wrapped package to snatch the tape away and dig into that bundle of see through nylon blouse and that circular skirt. The blouse was as beautiful as I had imagined it to be. The circular skirt was navy blue taffeta with a lining made of gauze material. The whole thing was quilted cross stitched.
I was hot and dirty and way too excited to wait until I could cool off the sweat and dirt.
I put on the nylon see through blouse to realize I needed a camisole.
Mama was mad because I hadn't ordered one to wear underneath my beautiful nylon see through blouse.
" Mama, I'll just chop off a slip and you can hem the waist, then put elastic in the bottom half for the slip."
Poor Mama always had added chores.
Mama didn't raise me to cave in on things like this.
I modeled it for Daddy to see that night.
I twirled around for the skirt to flare out enough to show my thighs.
Wrong move!
"Earline, you better not let me see you showing any skin above your knees, that is scanless'.
"Yesser Daddy".
Daddy didn't know what Daddy didn't know.
I wore my new nylon see through blouse and my navy blue quilted circular skirt to the first day of school for 7th grade and felt like a high class girl from anywhere Alabama.
I twirled around every chance I got and showed my skinny legs with all the white flesh I owned.
I sweated bullets right into the dead of winter while wearing that nylon see through blouse and navy blue circular skirt.
Others may have thought I over did the wearing of my favorite outfit, but I was pretty in my own mind and that was all that counted.
