I was thinking about what we did with the onset of spring. It brought Easter, wearing a hat to church (even when I was very little - especially when I was little!), shopping for new clothes and planning for summer vacation.
I remember having 2 hats - one that looked like it was lace or crocheted thread, almost helmet-shaped, with a small brim, and the iconic girls' white hat with a navy blue ribbon, bow in the back and streamers. That hat was okay, but the white lace helmet felt like it had been coated with glue and stuck on a bowl until it dried forming a perfect large grapefruit rind that I had to force onto my head. It had something that poked my ears like needles and no matter how much I fidgeted, I was going to have to wear that ^%$&* hat!!
Every Easter, my dad would get my mother and me corsages - gardenias, always gardenias - and to this day, I can smell a gardenia if I just think about one. I still love their unmistakably sweet, pungent aroma. I have tried to grow them several times without success, so the memory is all the more precious. And it overshadows the wearing of that porcupine some salesperson convinced my mother was a hat!!
Those who know me well enough will appreciate this next story. One spring, my mother bought me 3 beautiful new pairs of shoes - each costing $15 - a lot in the mid-1960s!! Who knew that it would be the same summer my feet would take a growth spurt from little girl's shoe sizes into the size 4 of a "grownup," which they still are to this day!! But I remember the celebration and cheers I got from my friends that I had graduated to shoe sizes they'd been wearing for years!! And I must have been in my 40s before I stopped hearing my mother remind me that I only wore each pair once!! What was nearly traumatic then, makes me smile today. How different 30 years of experiences places on our perspective in life.
That wasn't the only challenging shoe episode I managed to survive. One day, as I walked up the wide promenade into Langley HS, I felt a slight, but obvious limp in my gait. When I looked down, to my great horror I was wearing 2 different shoes...one blue and one green, with different heal heights. Today I might think it funny enough to keep going (Not!), but then, the embarrassment would have been more than I could endure for a whole school day thinking that all 1600 students' 3200 eyes were concentrated on MY feet!!! I went directly to the office, called my mom who was teaching at Cooper and begged her to bring me the car so that I could go home and get matching shoes - at that point I think any two shoes that were at least the same color would have been better. My sweet mom got the principal to take her class and brought me the car, I ran her back down 193 to Cooper and managed to get home, get a pair of shoes and back before first period was over - and I know that Wayne Chester and my fellow Journalists on the staff of the newspaper thought I was just on a special story assignment......we got away with a lot in the mornings that year.
Spring in McLean brought warm beautiful days, new Madras shorts, laying in the grass visualizing cloud animals and engaging in conversations about which Beatle was our favorite - all very appropriate and important pursuits for a young girl.
The whole world should be so lucky as we were growing up in McLean!!
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Azaleas, that's what spring meant to me in McLean. Forsythia, daffodils, LILAC (we don't have lilac bushes in Florida). Spring in McLean was probably the most beautiful time of the year. Loved it.
As for Easter bonnets, ours were always hand-me downs from the neighbor girls. I have a pic of my sister Maggie and I underneath a bird house in the pyracantha with our hand-me down Easter bonnets on. I think we felt like a million dollars.
Our parents always hid jelly beans and one chocolate Easter bunny per child (so if you found one, you couldn't find another) around the living room/dining room (not the kitchen) and maybe a light switch in the hallway. There were 6 Easter baskets (4 big, 2 small) for us kids and it was a delightful time. We had a brick wall in the living room where jelly beans were stuck into the crevices that made up the brick wall. Thanks for reminding me of that!
Spring in McLean!
I cant believe that i would lie in grass and imagine cloud animals and play swing the statue in the front yard, now a days i am afraid of tics and bugs and bees and never even sit in the grass or go barefoot. Those were the days!
When we were really young, and it was still legal, we got 2 chicks for Easter one year. One was dyed orange, and we named him Carrot, and the other was dyed green, named Celery. I can still remember their chicken-y smell, i guess their poop, it was. haha
When they got a little bigger, we took them to a farm and surrendered them.
Carol, if you're on facebook, friend me and you can see the easter picture and aunt maggie and amy (my sisters). nancy reid welge
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