Idaho- an exotic name to most Americans, conjuring images of towering mountains, deep canyons... and endless fields of spuds.
In Pocket Girdles (and its sequel, Postcards From Potatoland), humorist Marianne Love speaks with charm and wit of growing up in rural Idaho.
The first-girdle story that gave rise to the book's title will serve as a cautionary tale to anyone contemplating wearing an open girdle without stockings to hold it down...
To begin her new offensive, mother told me I could wear lipstick. This revelation pleased me. I welcomed the thought of carrying my own personal tube of bright red lipstick in my very first purse. It was definitely grown-up. But Mother also introduced me to a girdle, one of the major garments that distinguished girls from women, since it was time for me to start wearing nylons. By the late 1950s, the breakthrough in hosiery known as pantyhose may have hit the rest of the world, but in Sand Point, Idaho, we were always five years behind the times. Garter belts and girdles still ruled. NOTE
Petite girls needed only a garter belt to hook up hosiery, but I was not petite. I had been the first student, male or female, to break one hundred pounds in the fifth grade and my growth spurt had continued. "A girdle will make you slim," Mother explained to me. "You'll look ten pounds lighter because it holds your stomach and firms up your rear end."
So that fall I entered Sand Point Junior High School with three items of clothing that represented the severing of ties with the childhood world of Lincoln School. Although wearing a bra had become almost a habit, I still folded my arms across my chest in hopes that nobody noticed it. And on my first day as a junior high student, I made my own startling observation. Inspecting the outfits of virtually every other seventh-grade girl in my six classes, I saw that not one was wearing the same kind of nylons my mother had bought for me. Shuffling between classes, sitting on the bleachers during the lunch hour, and waiting in line after school for the bus to come, I scrutinized every pair of female legs that walked by, and my panic grew. I pretended to pay attention that made the expected one-word responses while all my friends discussed cute boys in their math classes or talked about mean new teachers, but really I was looking longingly for just one other girl at Sand Point junior high school was also wearing seamed nylons.
Not one.
On the bus ride home from school, it was difficult to concentrate on conversation while everyone jabbered. My thoughts turned inside my head instead. I was already certainly an object of scorn if anyone had spotted the brown seams that ran crooked up the back of my legs. The girdle was bad enough, but wearing something so weird as seamed nylons was more than I could endure.
When I got home, mother asked how the day had gone. "Oh, it was fine, but you know what?" I asked. "There are some new kinds of nylons. Everybody has them. They don't have seams. Can you get me some?"
"Your nylons are just fine for school," she replied. "We wore them at Nazareth College. You can wear them to junior high."
"But I'm the only one in the whole school who had seamed nylons today," I protested.
"That's your imagination," she responded. "Besides, maybe you'll start a new trend."
Mother either had forgotten what it felt like to be a self-conscious, clumsy seventh grader who stuck out in a crowd of classmates, or her attendance at Catholic schools, where everyone wore uniforms, had dulled any sensitivity she could have mustered for my embarrassment. The discussion ended. I would continue wearing my seamed stockings to school.
The next day, knowing that my stockings had certainly been the subject of discussion at several dinner conversations, I took every precaution to avoid having anyone see my seams again. I spent a lot of time leaning against lockers, strategically planning my escape from the halls when big crowds of kids pushing their way toward class covered up any clear views of the back of my legs. I walked backward often for the next few days. Somehow even these tactics didn't erase my constant fear of someone catching sight of the seams and yelling out, "Marianne, what kind of ugly stockings are those?"
Finally, after about a week, I came up with a new plan -- I would remove my nylons as soon as I got to school. My legs were fat and white, but what the heck? Having people see pale skin did not even come close to having someone comment on my old-fashioned hosiery. Besides, lots of other girls went bare-legged.
On my first "ditch the nylons" day, I arrived at school and wasted no time heading for the girls' bathroom on the second floor. Locking myself in a stall and flushing the toilet to distract suspicious souls, I unsnapped the garters, slipped off the stockings, and wadded them up. Social disaster had been averted. Now to hide the hideous hosiery -- it wouldn't be cool to dangle from my Peechee folder. I stuck the ball of nylon in my coat pocket, stuck my coat in my locker, and headed out for what I thought would be a day of relaxed freedom. Before first period, I walked around with my friends feeling as though the weight of the world had been lifted. No longer would I have to plan routes through crowded hallways, or spend half the day propped up against walls hiding those wretched seams. I felt like a new woman as I walked into science class with a confident swagger and improved posture. We saluted the flag and listened to morning announcements. Mr. Chronic started his lecture. And then about two minutes into his talk, I began receiving hints that all was not well with my plan to shed my stockings.
It was 1959, before full-fledged panty girdles, when girdles were still oversized, glorified plastic bands. NOTE Mr. Chronic had not yet taught us any physics, so I had no concept of the scientific principles that apply to elastic that has nothing to hold it in place. In fact, I was suddenly incapable of comprehending any science that morning, since my girdle began slowly inching up my thighs in an all-out assault on my waistline.
Pretending to pay close attention to Mr. Chronic, I sat straight up in my desk and tried to grip the seat so the girdle would stay put, maybe even retreat. But It was determined. I could still feel it gradually crawling up the front of my legs. Wiggling my buttocks, I again sat up. This time I lost ground. While I was shifting positions, the girdle took advantage of the temporary loss of pressure and eased a couple of inches upward. Now what?
Still staring straight ahead, I slowly put both hands in my lap and folded them, one on top of the other. I pinched a portion of the girdle with my hidden hands and tried to pull it back down my thigh. But, ready for a long siege, the stubborn elastic refused to move. Switching hands, I tried the other side, all the time aware that all but the most subtle movements could draw the notice of neighboring students who might not be listening closely to Mr. Chronic's lecture. The girdle stood its ground and even advanced, slithering a notch further up my leg.
I look at the clock. Only ten minutes of first period had passed.
The next 45 minutes were long, desperate ones. I began to sweat as the girdle maintained its pace upward. I shifted, pinched, and tugged, to no avail. By the end of the hour, I faced another, more vital, challenge -- breathing. The bottom portion of the cruel mass of elastic had come to rest on my hips, while the rest hugged my waist. I could barely inhale or exhale; it had squeezed off my lung capacity. Gasping for breath, I imaginde the headlines in the Worldwide Weekly News, "Girdle Gets Best of North Idaho Sevie."
Never was the expression "saved by the bell" as true as it was on that miserable morning. When it rang, I exploded from my desk and raced down the crowd of the hallway toward the lavatory. Within the safety of the stall door, I pulled the garment down as far as it possibly could go without sticking beneath my skirt. And I walked ever so slowly to my math class in the second floor of the junior high annex, trying not to disturb my girdle in hopes it would stay put this hour. Once in the room, I sat down carefully, exerting maximum pressure on the back of my knees to nail the thing down. Mr. Loman joked around for a minute and then began his lecture.
Now, one thing I hadn't thought of during my race to the lavatory was why people normally use that facility. My oversight became more and more apparent as Mr. Loman started explaining fractions. My bladder had not been given any relief since I left home at 7:30, and wouldn't be able to get any for at least another hour. Obviously, during the first week of seventh-grade in a brand-new school, I couldn't draw attention to myself by asking to go to the bathroom during class. I had a real battle on my hands, fending off two offenses - one enemy within that wanted to blow up and another outside that wanted to scale the mountain.
"Why did I do this?" I thought to myself, "I shoulda just left the nylons on. Why do I have to be so weird?" Having a dialogue with myself during class was not helpful. Anytime I took my mind off the girdle It took advantage of me and wormed its way up my legs. My bladder pulsated, constantly reminding me that it wanted its contents out. The more miserable it made me, the more I shifted around my seat. Eventually the girdle took charge. With relative ease, it found its way back up to my waistline. Surrendering on that front, I could concentrate on squeezing my legs together to avoid any outburst from my bladder. The second defeat seemed certain.
The longest hour of my life finally ended. Again I shot out of my desk and ran out the math class door in a flurry, oblivious to anyone blocking my pathway to relief. Throwing open the bathroom door and banging into the stall, I bent down, ripped off the girdle, and opened the bladder gates. Once the flood had subsided, I made another undergarment decision. "Never again," I thought. "The girdle's gotta go, too." I stuffed it in my purse and ran to third period reading class. The rest of the school day passed smoothly, but the morning had produced enough stress to last me for the rest of my junior high career.
Copyright 1994 by Marianne Love
Posted with permission of the author
Though pocketing her girdle seems the solution to her problems, young Marianne's underwear adventures are not over. There's one more acute embarrassment yet to come.
To find out more, buy the book and help encourage a very deserving author!
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Excerpt
Originally Posted January 2003
Notes (Purely of interest to girdle scholars!)
"By the late 1950s, the breakthrough in hosiery known as pantyhose may have hit the rest of the world, but in Sand Point, Idaho, we were always five years behind the times."
Ms Love is unkind to her home town; pantyhose had just barely been invented by this point, and even on the coasts, its widespread adoption was still several years away.
"It was 1959, before full-fledged panty girdles, when girdles were still oversized, glorified plastic bands."
Here, the author has erred in the other direction. Though open girdles still predominated, panty styles had been around since the 1940s, and were steadily gaining in popularity by this point.