| Biographical Non-Fiction posted September 18, 2020 | Chapters: |
...61 62 -63- 64... 
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Styles and other changes of the the day.
A chapter in the book Remembering Yesterday
Seventies Trends and Challenges
by BethShelby
| Background Living in the New Orleans area in the seventies brings new challenges to the family. Carol is a teenager and the twins are far behind. |
Our Pastor wanted to do something to get the younger people more involved in activities that would help keep them from leaving the church as they grew older. The church and school decided to organize a Pathfinder Club like many of the other churches in our denomination had.
Pathfinders is a lot like Scouts, but with both girls and boys in the same club. Someone volunteered to lead it, and before long I found myself involved as well. They met one night a week, and because I had to bring the kids back to the school for the meeting, it only made sense that I stay rather than make two trips. The school was several miles away. The kids wore uniforms and earned badges by learning skills in various things. At first, I was teaching crafts and sewing, but later they made me a deputy director. It meant more responsibility and more camp-outs in my future. It also meant I needed a uniform as well.
On the first camping trip, we took the Pathfinders to a park just across the lake from New Orleans. It was my first time to actually sleep in a tent. Sleeping is the wrong word to use, because I really didn’t sleep. I think young bones must adjust better to sleeping on the ground with the creepy-crawlies. It isn't so easy for those of us who have grown used to our creature comforts. I decided there had to be a better way to camp, like at Day’s Inn or Howard Johnson’s, maybe.
You wanted no part of it, because you’d had enough camping in tents during the two years you spent in the army. Your year in Korea had involved, not only tents, but foxholes and mortar blasts as well. As a member of the Combat Engineers, it had been your job to find and dismantle mine fields. I can’t say that I blame you for saying “No thanks.”
*****
Styles took a drastic turn in the seventies. These were the days of double knits and leisure suits. Men often wore loud shirts and some had large prints of things like flowers or animals. I talked you into getting a hunter-green leisure suit and a couple of purple shirts, as well as some brightly patterned ties. Since I picked most of your clothes, you reluctantly agreed to wear them, but I think you were nervous about the choice of colors. Being the modest person you were, you weren’t anxious to stand out in a crowd. You relaxed a little when you realized that it was what other men were wearing as well.
Men were wearing their hair longer and growing sideburns. You had decided, several years before, that you disliked going to a barbershop, and heaven forbid, that you go into a beauty salon to have it cut. At first, you’d ask me to trim it a little between cuts, but by now, you hadn’t had it professionally done in years. Every week or so you’d ask me for a trim. I kept telling you that I had no idea how to cut hair, but apparently that didn’t matter, because you refused to go back to a barber shop. I told you that the reason I was stuck with the job was because the barber wouldn’t allow you in his shop in your underwear.
I was cutting Don’s hair too. He didn’t want to go to the barbershop because they always cut off more than he liked. I did the best I could, but the family accused me of putting a bowl over his head for a pattern. Carol started calling him Dutch boy because of his hair cut. That may have been his nickname at school as well.
Occasionally, I went to a salon and had my hair permed, but only about twice a year when it grew too long to manage. Church clothes for women were often floor length dresses. A few ladies wore pants, but people didn't dress quite as casually in our church as in some of the other churches. I liked the long dresses and made several for myself and the girls. I wore pants to work and no longer wore high heels as I had throughout the sixties.
Holly Hobby clothes were in for little girls, and I made a couple of outfits for Connie out of soft cottons. My mom was into sewing with double knits, so she made several dresses for the girls and Connie from that kind of material. I guess it was itchy on tender young skin, because Connie didn’t like it. At one point, I was holding her in church, and she decided she’d had enough. She started trying to tear her dress off in the middle of the service.
******
It was 1974 and Carol was thirteen and starting to get some baby sitting jobs. She had become friends with Julie, a girl she had met in the neighborhood. Sometimes, Julie committed to a sitter job and backed out at the last minute. She started throwing these jobs Carol’s way. At first, we were reluctant to let her go places where we didn’t know the family. It was hard for us to accept the fact that we had a teenager, and we needed to let her try her wings a bit without being so controlling.
You and I had a problem with Julie. She was always ringing our bell and wanting Carol to come out. We didn’t trust her, and it didn’t help that she'd confessed to Carol that she had once tied a rope around her neck and jumped from a second story window planning to kill herself. Maybe she didn’t realize that the rope needed to be attached to something on the other end.
Carol was susceptible to the influence of others, and it sometimes led to trouble. One girl in her school persuaded her to jump out the classroom window during recess and leave school to go to a nearby quick-stop for snacks. Once, when spending the night with another school friend, the two girls slipped away for a midnight bike ride.
Another time, you and I ended up paying the plumbing cost of having a bathroom sink put back on the wall after Carol broke it off by sitting on it. She was not a disobedient child, but following some of her bolder friends often got her into trouble. We were beginning to realize that raising teenagers would bring on a new set of problems for us to deal with.
Pathfinders is a lot like Scouts, but with both girls and boys in the same club. Someone volunteered to lead it, and before long I found myself involved as well. They met one night a week, and because I had to bring the kids back to the school for the meeting, it only made sense that I stay rather than make two trips. The school was several miles away. The kids wore uniforms and earned badges by learning skills in various things. At first, I was teaching crafts and sewing, but later they made me a deputy director. It meant more responsibility and more camp-outs in my future. It also meant I needed a uniform as well.
On the first camping trip, we took the Pathfinders to a park just across the lake from New Orleans. It was my first time to actually sleep in a tent. Sleeping is the wrong word to use, because I really didn’t sleep. I think young bones must adjust better to sleeping on the ground with the creepy-crawlies. It isn't so easy for those of us who have grown used to our creature comforts. I decided there had to be a better way to camp, like at Day’s Inn or Howard Johnson’s, maybe.
You wanted no part of it, because you’d had enough camping in tents during the two years you spent in the army. Your year in Korea had involved, not only tents, but foxholes and mortar blasts as well. As a member of the Combat Engineers, it had been your job to find and dismantle mine fields. I can’t say that I blame you for saying “No thanks.”
*****
Styles took a drastic turn in the seventies. These were the days of double knits and leisure suits. Men often wore loud shirts and some had large prints of things like flowers or animals. I talked you into getting a hunter-green leisure suit and a couple of purple shirts, as well as some brightly patterned ties. Since I picked most of your clothes, you reluctantly agreed to wear them, but I think you were nervous about the choice of colors. Being the modest person you were, you weren’t anxious to stand out in a crowd. You relaxed a little when you realized that it was what other men were wearing as well.
Men were wearing their hair longer and growing sideburns. You had decided, several years before, that you disliked going to a barbershop, and heaven forbid, that you go into a beauty salon to have it cut. At first, you’d ask me to trim it a little between cuts, but by now, you hadn’t had it professionally done in years. Every week or so you’d ask me for a trim. I kept telling you that I had no idea how to cut hair, but apparently that didn’t matter, because you refused to go back to a barber shop. I told you that the reason I was stuck with the job was because the barber wouldn’t allow you in his shop in your underwear.
I was cutting Don’s hair too. He didn’t want to go to the barbershop because they always cut off more than he liked. I did the best I could, but the family accused me of putting a bowl over his head for a pattern. Carol started calling him Dutch boy because of his hair cut. That may have been his nickname at school as well.
Occasionally, I went to a salon and had my hair permed, but only about twice a year when it grew too long to manage. Church clothes for women were often floor length dresses. A few ladies wore pants, but people didn't dress quite as casually in our church as in some of the other churches. I liked the long dresses and made several for myself and the girls. I wore pants to work and no longer wore high heels as I had throughout the sixties.
Holly Hobby clothes were in for little girls, and I made a couple of outfits for Connie out of soft cottons. My mom was into sewing with double knits, so she made several dresses for the girls and Connie from that kind of material. I guess it was itchy on tender young skin, because Connie didn’t like it. At one point, I was holding her in church, and she decided she’d had enough. She started trying to tear her dress off in the middle of the service.
******
It was 1974 and Carol was thirteen and starting to get some baby sitting jobs. She had become friends with Julie, a girl she had met in the neighborhood. Sometimes, Julie committed to a sitter job and backed out at the last minute. She started throwing these jobs Carol’s way. At first, we were reluctant to let her go places where we didn’t know the family. It was hard for us to accept the fact that we had a teenager, and we needed to let her try her wings a bit without being so controlling.
You and I had a problem with Julie. She was always ringing our bell and wanting Carol to come out. We didn’t trust her, and it didn’t help that she'd confessed to Carol that she had once tied a rope around her neck and jumped from a second story window planning to kill herself. Maybe she didn’t realize that the rope needed to be attached to something on the other end.
Carol was susceptible to the influence of others, and it sometimes led to trouble. One girl in her school persuaded her to jump out the classroom window during recess and leave school to go to a nearby quick-stop for snacks. Once, when spending the night with another school friend, the two girls slipped away for a midnight bike ride.
Another time, you and I ended up paying the plumbing cost of having a bathroom sink put back on the wall after Carol broke it off by sitting on it. She was not a disobedient child, but following some of her bolder friends often got her into trouble. We were beginning to realize that raising teenagers would bring on a new set of problems for us to deal with.
 Recognized |
I'm continuing to recall memories of life with my deceased husband as if I am talking aloud to him. I'm doing this because I want my children to know us as we knew each other and not just as their parents.
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