I won't talk about Annie all week, so you readers and Annie can breathe easy, but I will post some of my favorite Annie photos. I think she was about 7 when I took this one. I know it was in our new house after the other one burned down. So, this was snapped circa 1985.
Occasionally, Annie had good hair days. This was one. And, it's no reflection on Annie that she had bad hair days. That was genetic and environmentally influenced. Her mother had her share too. In fact, when mine was combed, the paparazzi should have shown up.
When you lead an active daily life, coming your hair is just not one of the priorities. So, on this day, when Annie was wearing a dress---something she did about 3 percent more of the time than I did (except for school--God, I hated that) and what she does a big percentage of the time these days---I took pictures to chronicle the historic happening.
Today, I'm going into town to talk about historic happenings in downtown. Well, at least from a Love's eye view. I don't know how much I'm going to talk because my friend Alice Woolsey Coldsnow will be with me. The one thing I do know is that neither Alice nor I will be wearing a dress, but we'll probably comb our hair.
We're "telling it like it was" when we were growing up in the Sandpoint area during the '40s, '50s, and '60s. I'll defer a lot to Alice cuz she's my elder, and it's important to show respect. Alice graduated from high school in the height of the "Lost in the '50s" era, so she has good memories of lots of dancing times at Community Hall and cruising down First Avenue in hot Chevies and Fords.
I graduated in 1965, so my memories are maybe a little tamer. More rock music, still cruising, still stealing outhouses for Homecoming parades. I remember a photo in my Monticola, where some of my classmates carried a makeshift wooden coffin through our torchlight parade, supposedly bearing the dead body of our opposing team's mascot.
I remember a lot about Homecoming 1965, like dressing up in a green tweed skirt and top (we HAD to wear dresses to school every day then) and high heels to carry the dozen roses for our queen Joan Andrews. (Good morning, Joan, howz your coffee?)
I also remember we were having a pre-game party (no booze by the way) at Susan Bergstrom's house, (probably from Ricardo's) I spilled the beans on who the Homecoming queen was to my friends. Then, I threatened them with their lives and advised them to be sure to act surprised when the official announcement was made.
As vice president of Pep Club, I got to count votes in Mr. Sodorff's office that afternoon. We were sworn to secrecy, but Mr. Sodorff didn't know that I had a hard time keeping secrets, especially when I was excited about spreading good news. My friends apparently carried off the ruse because today is probably the first time most folks ( 'cept my friends, of course, know that I told).
And, today whenever Alice isn't telling her stories---and she's got some good ones---I'll be having the time of my life, journeying back into our wonderful past days of growing up in Podunk Sandpoint and telling the newbies in the Leadership Sandpoint class how it used to be when we were a 2-stoplight, two-way street, two-digit telephone number town.
Ah, precious memories of two of my greatest loves, Annie and Sandpoint!
3 comments:
Marianne, I'm with you 100% on the subject of dresses! My three daughters cannot believe that when I was in high school and college it was REQUIRED that female students wear skirts or dresses of a modest length (NO culottes!) to class. Indeed, my elite Eastern women's college forbade its undergraduates to leave campus wearing any form of trousers or shorts.
How far is that sort of restriction removed from the burkha, I ask you?!
Your Annie and my three girls don't know how it feels to have to sleep on curlers every night and to have to dress up every school day in the knowledge that one will probably be judged that day more on the basis of appearance than on the basis of performance.
Thank goodness those days are behind us.
But American women still have a long way to go in order to move beyond the pernicious, soul-destroying influence of the societal forces which press upon women to reject their natural selves. My midsized Midwestern University town, whose mean educational level far exceeds the national average, is chokingly full of well-heeled women who keep the plentiful plastic surgeons and "anti-aging experts" in clover.
Give me jeans, a comfortable shirt, a good pair of shoes, a good haircut, and a touch of lipstick, and I'm off. Why carry a prison around with you? Why be other than yourself?
(BTW, in this, women are their own worst enemies. Most of the men I know and care about are totally unimpressed by artifice.)
Marianne,
Thanks for posting this lovely picture of Our Precious Little Annie. This is my favorite of the many photos Mamma Love displayed in her bedroom.
Thanks for the memories!
Love,
Margaret
I love that picture of Annie the Almost-Birthday Girl. She did look adorable in a dress (don't blush when you read this, Annie,), but looks just as adorable in her mountain climbing gear from REI.
Another admiring aunt....who also survived the mandatory dress-wearing decades.
Mary
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