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[Smokey Stover]

Very nice, LivLaughLuv. You have a nice perspective on a bygone age that's worth remembering.

You mentioned not having to lock the doors. I'm guessing that to many of our citizens that sounds a bit like "I walked two miles to school through the snow every day"--in other words, a partial truth elevated to old folks' tales. You've got to remember, 24-hour news was still in the future in the '50s. We didn't hear on the radio or see in the paper every case of violent crime across the whole nation. It was still only local crime that could get everyone fearful and agitated, and the country was a bit more rural. Local crime was most often breaking a window, or uttering threats, perhaps.

Youngsters in my town played outside all the time, usually with no supervision except that of their playmates or an occasional sibling. When I walked home from school (sometimes in a blizzard, sometimes in sunshine), it wasn't seven miles, just one. After my mother started working it was pretty certain there'd be no one home after school, but I didn't need a key, since what LLL said was true. No one thought they needed to lock the doors. (Maybe some did, but I never had reason to think so.)

Other things I did after school and on weekends included hanging around with other boys my age. Well, our "hunging around" was a bit more organized than just that. We climbed trees, went for long walks in the nearby forests (sometimes looking for salamanders), drank sulfur water from an Artesian well out in the middle of a large cow pasture. (The well was full of snails, amphibians, moss, and other wildlife. That didn't bother us, though.) We rode our bicycles down steep hills and over gullies. Sliding down a hill next to main street, I remember sliding farther than I expected, right into the middle of the main drag. Some of the boys (but not I) trapped skunks and muskrat. In the summer we saw lots of each, especially as we liked to explore the creek.

It was nice to be able to go wherever we wanted without fear and without our moms getting all upset. It must be easier to be a mother if you aren't always worried about your kids getting into trouble. I won't say I didn't get into trouble, rather, my parents rarely heard about it.

And lest you think that this outdoor life was only available to boys, guess again. Girls would sometimes climb trees, or ride their bikes all around town, although their outdoor play was often as not an imitation of the boys, or an annexation to the little troops of boys. Think Darla, in Our Gang. .

Off-thread? Oh, I'm sorry. Expunge this, if you need to. Got carried away!

[Jute]

Smokey and Luv, thank you for a sweet look back at gentler times. I recall most of the things you mentioned; a few were a bit before me.

I can't believe you mentioned orlon sweaters, Smokey! I recall the word and believe that it was a synthetic material, sort of like the sweater version of nylon; please correct me if I'm wrong. My aunt loved a particular type of sweater when I was very small - she had all sorts of them and I'll bet that they were orlon.

I know we're off-topic, but I think that we all long for a time when it was safe for children to simply be children.

And I still firmly believe that the mainstay of a woman's wardrobe is a good pair of jeans.

[PatC]

Random thoughts here:

Hemlines:

(1) As short as I am I didn't have as much choice as some girls with longer legs. In the 50s and 60s my skirts were either just below my kneecap or in the middle of it. Any longer and I looked like I was standing in a hole.

(2) I was in college when hemlines started rising. The Dean of Women saw fit to put out a Dress Code memo to address that trend decreeing that hems were to be no shorter than JUST above the knee. As I was about to enter a Sociology class I saw the memo posted on the bulletin board an stopped to read it. A classmate did the same. She was a very pretty girl, tall with long dark hair and SHORT skirts. When she finished reading the memo she looked at me and said..."just above the knee. Is that sitting or standing?"

Outdoor life as a kid:

THIS little girl would often "climb trees, or ride their bikes all around town". I also scrambled down the hill at the end of our street and made a "fort" by digging out a trench and piling branches around it. It was very useful when playing cowboys and indians or war and I needed to hide from the others (almost always all boys since there was only one other girl of a like age in our neighborhood... and she was a girly-girl.)

[Jute]

Originally Posted by PatC

Random thoughts here:

Hemlines:

(1) As short as I am I didn't have as much choice as some girls with longer legs. In the 50s and 60s my skirts were either just below my kneecap or in the middle of it. Any longer and I looked like I was standing in a hole.

(2) I was in college when hemlines started rising. The Dean of Women saw fit to put out a Dress Code memo to address that trend decreeing that hems were to be no shorter than JUST above the knee. As I was about to enter a Sociology class I saw the memo posted on the bulletin board an stopped to read it. A classmate did the same. She was a very pretty girl, tall with long dark hair and SHORT skirts. When she finished reading the memo she looked at me and said..."just above the knee. Is that sitting or standing?"

Outdoor life as a kid:

THIS little girl would often "climb trees, or ride their bikes all around town". I also scrambled down the hill at the end of our street and made a "fort" by digging out a trench and piling branches around it. It was very useful when playing cowboys and indians or war and I needed to hide from the others (almost always all boys since there was only one other girl of a like age in our neighborhood... and she was a girly-girl.)

Pat - is it safe to assume that you attended a Catholic university? I never wore anything but jeans to class.

But the hemline on the jeans was critical - the jeans could never expose your ankles.

[PatC]

Originally Posted by Jute

Pat - is it safe to assume that you attended a Catholic university? I never wore anything but jeans to class.

But the hemline on the jeans was critical - the jeans could never expose your ankles.

Nope, a state school. East Central State in Ada, OK. You must be younger than I. (surprise... surprise) I was out of college (class of '62) before we started wearing jeans a lot.

[Smokey Stover]

Those are interesting comments from you girls. PatC first:

'THIS little girl would often "climb trees, or ride their bikes all around town". I also scrambled down the hill at the end of our street and made a "fort" by digging out a trench and piling branches around it. It was very useful when playing cowboys and indians or war and I needed to hide from the others (almost always all boys since there was only one other girl of a like age in our neighborhood... and she was a girly-girl.)'

What a rich fount of lore this is. I don't know why you needed to "hide from the others" unless it was part of your game. When I was about five (and thereafter occasionally) I made a snow fort with Bobby Bouton, and we used to defend it against imaginary invaders using the nearest weapon of mass destruction at hand. Or in hand. I know you are a percipient lady and I need not explain.

But "girly-girl." I became familiar with this term from BtVS, where it is used often, and mostly without negative connotations. As a slayer, Buffy would like just to be able to drop her slaying duties every now and then and be a "girly-girl." I don't think she would regard it as ruling out playing games with the boys and wearing jeans or slacks, although she did regard it as playing a feminine role.

Which brings us to Jute's pronouncement that "I firmly believe that the mainstay of a woman's wardrobe is a good pair of jeans." Probably you, Jute, are no girly-girl, but I think PatC is correct in saying that you're a mere youngster to us, your elders. You obviously are thinking of fitted jeans, that is, jeans made for women. And you probably have a choice of faded jeans in soft cloth, or dark blues with or without rivets and a stiff texture.

When I was young enough to be acquainted with girls, the only jeans available to them were men's jeans, dark blue and stiff, and on women very unattractive. In my opinion, there are some women for whom even fitted jeans should not be a mainstay. If you want to wear trousers,there are other alternatives, some of them excellent choices.

Orlon sweaters were popular when synthetic fabrics were relatively few. Orlon has mostly gone the way of rayon, although not for the same reason. (Rayon is extremely flammable.) Most sweaters using synthetics now use a blend of fabrics, which is doubtless a good thing.

[PatC]

Yep, you guessed it. My "hide from others" was part of the role playing games. I could slide down that hill and be hid before the boys knew for sure where I was then when those "pesky redskins" came down that hill I could jump up with my trusty 100 shooters (cap pistol rolls of caps was about 100 wasn't it?) and take 'em all out.

[Smokey Stover]

Holy Smokes, PatC, I've seen your picture, and you look too young to have even heard of cap guns, let alone used one. I scarcely remembered them until you mentioned them. They've probably been outlawed in most states, and have gone the way of firecrackers. I don't miss the firecrackers, since my brother nearly lost a finger by wondering why he couldn't light the fuse of the one in his hand. Turns out it was lit after all.