Becky and Her Petticoats

It was the beginning of school in the late 1950's and Becky and I were together at Bolton High School. Well, together is an operative word that doesn't really apply here. We attended the same school would be a more accurate description. I was new to the school and had few friends from junior high and Becky had lots of friends. She was totally immersed in the whole high school thing and didn't want to be saddled with a little brother spying on her. I was too shy at that time anyway to be social. I know, you find that impossible to believe that moi could be shy but I was...it wasn't until later that I discovered it wasn't necessarily a shyness. I was really just introverted. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Becky was a lot like daddy. She liked to have people around all the time. She was very social. Becky even belonged to clubs and hung out with the cool crowd at lunch time. She was a Bolton Booster and not just anybody could be a booster. I envied her for that. 

This was the era that petticoats were the thing to wear and saddle oxfords. Well, the saddle oxfords were really only worn by the boosters at football games but the petticoats were daily attire. The more layers the merrier. I believe Becky had five or six layers, which was probably the norm but I didn't make it a habit of finding out how many layers the other girls wore. Oh, I'm sure some guy kept tabs but it wasn't me. That amounts to about five yards of tulle for each petticoat. You do the math. The skirts stood out like the Egyptian pyramids...small at the top and very wide at the bottom. To watch one sit in those layers of clothing was a wonder to behold. One could never attempt to sit if their hands were holding books or something because it required both hands to press down on the skirt as they rear ended the chair because if they didn't then their entire body would disappear behind a mountain of tulle. I do believe that the school desks had that little shelf for us to write on solely to hold those layers of tulle in check. I remember seeing some girls popping out of those desks like a jack-in-the-box. They looked like a spring that had become uncoiled. Poof and all that fluff expanded as they stood.

Now, I realize that tulle by itself if gathered and sewn together properly will take up a lot of space and Becky did have the space to house these in her closet but I don't think they ever really saw the inside of that closet. Especially during the school week. I think these petticoats just stood at attention in the corner of her room each night like sentinels on duty. My brother would have loved to use them for cages for some of the pets he brought home. But that starch would have been noxious. 

Thankfully these undergarments didn't need to be washed on a regular basis because they were protected by the skirt itself but if they did need washing then Saturdays were the day she took care of this. We shared a bathroom and she had a standing reservation for the days of washing. Which meant that my brother and I were out of luck for using that room that day. Thankfully we were boys that lived in the country and knew how to take care of business when outdoors, you know what I mean? The room looked like a rainbow of clothes piled on the floor. Tulle everywhere in several shades of color. Becky hand washed each one of these in the tub and then ironed and starched them. Becky used Sta Flo extra strength. The industrial kind...undiluted. Honey, they were as stiff as some of the narrow minded Baptist women I knew at church. 

These were the years when Daddy was in love with camellias. He had seventy or so planted around the house and yard. The ones closest to the patio were again reserved by sister, Becky, for the drying of petticoats. There were more than enough for Becky to use, in fact, I'm surprised that she didn't invite all of the Bolton High girls to come share her daddy's camellia bushes on wash day. She could have had petticoat parties. They could have enjoyed washing and drying and starching and talking about boys and all the other girl stuff they talked about while they rolled their hair with those brush rollers secured by bobby pins. I can just picture a gaggle of girls sitting around the patio in their curlers with scarves on to keep the curlers from sticking their heads, sipping lemonade while they waited for their petticoats to dry. I think sister really missed a great opportunity. After she carefully washed and starched each one she took care to place each one on the top of the camellia bushes so they could keep their shape. She dared us to get near these as they dried in the hot sun. 

I'm grateful that she didn't invite friends because these were the same bushes that I was charged with watering. I spent my Saturdays with a hose and a timer, per orders from the Senator, watering each and every one of those seventy or so bushes, five minutes each. You get the picture. On petticoat days I made sure I watered those petticoat bushes after Becky had left the house with her friends or had her nose in a book. Oh, I know, I was only supposed to water the bushes at the bottom so as not to get the leaves wet in the hot sun for fear of scorching, but for some little reason those five or six bushes managed to get the total wash from head to toe.  I'm not sure if Becky ever realized that her starched petticoats were not as stiff as she intended but I know for a fact that they weren't. Thankfully all that starch didn't seem to affect the beautiful camellias. Even more, I'm thankful that Daddy or Becky never discovered about my watering habits.

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