On 8/3/2015 8:16 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
Moose de Flower wrote:
[Sound of Moosie falling on the floor, LOL.]
I do recall first hand expressions from my first wife when we were dating of
the discomfort of the girdles her mother
forced her to wear when she dressed up. And I can attest to what a problem
they were when engaging in activities her
mother would very much disapprove of ...
Well, DUH!!! Why do you think her mother made her wear them?
1. Yeah, possibly - didn't work.
Funny thing was, they were obsessed with the idea that she should remain pure for marriage and certainly not marry until
she had her U degree (see father's story below). She was far from pure, in the sense they meant it, when we married
shortly after she turned 18 and could do so without their permission. By the time we amicably divorced, she had an MA
from Berkeley. A later MFA from RISD, teaching position at a KC U and one or two other degrees make her well
certificated. The ups and downs of her life have been entirely a result of who she is, not girdles, manners or
certificates. Nice woman, more than a little crazy, though; reminds me a lot of her mother. (Their other daughter
married a guy they disapproved of much more than of me, a clown, I think they thought. They are still married, coming up
on 50 years later, and he is lovingly taking care of her in her declining physical health.) So much for parental
judgement and foresight ...
2. A belief that dressing right, speaking right, and on and on, were how one maintained a place in the middle class. She
was an orphan who grew up fairly poor . Her husband also had a social inferiority complex. He had an engineering degree
from Michigan, but ran a prosaic dump of a refrigeration business. He treated my PhD, Phi Beta Kappa dad like some sort
of god or hero, practically hanging on every pearl that dropped from his lips, for his credentials, and position as a
research scientist, not his wisdom.
My father returned the favor, disliking the fawning and correctly diagnosing the 'refrigeration' business as essentially
a transportation business, hauling refrigerators from homes to the shop for repairs that look little time and materials,
then hauling them back, removing and rehanging endless doors in the process. I couldn't see what the problem was, as he
was his own boss and clearly making more money than my dad at that time.
In that, more important, sense, a girdle was required to be socially OK. Her mom once criticized my table manners in a
particular respect. I asked if she had an Emily Post at hand, knowing the answer MUST be yes, looked it up and showed
her that Emily thought what I was doing was not only OK, but rather sophisticated, Continental. I wondered if she,
KNOWING it must be WRONG, burned the book. :-)
Appearances Are All Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|