Tag Archives: Hand-me-downs

Classic Post: Booting Up

This post first appeared on January 3, 2018.

“Don’t go outdoors without your boots!”

These winter words echo across decades.

Actually, this child liked clumping boots. Despite Mom’s belief I would catch 19 diseases, their podiatric force field protected me when stomping ice-covered gutters.

Unfortunately for my parents, their children’s feet grew hourly. While my sister acceded to wearing my hand-me-downs, I drew the line at my brother’s galoshes. However, recycled boots weren’t always an option because we had honed losing winter wear to a fine art.

The positive side: Lack of sufficient winter garb kept us inside warm classrooms at recess. While friends shivered outdoors, I read favorite books.

Some stories featured boots. In Little Women, Jo March’s boots helped her play swashbuckling heroes and villains in homegrown dramas. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, a traveling cobbler designed Almanzo Wilder’s first manly pair. Puss in Boots never would have brought his master fame, fortune and a princess if he hadn’t strutted about in that all-powerful footwear.

Still, most boots seemed mundane until go-go boots invaded the fifth grade fashion scene. My ignorant mother refused to buy me white boots amid the muddy slop season.

I whined. I pined. I promised I wouldn’t lose them, not even one.

She wouldn’t budge. So, I languished without the go-go boots every girl owned except me — and Becky Andrews, who wore thigh-high black boots like Nancy Sinatra’s when she sang “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

Ten years later, I wore a similar pair that stretched my height well past six feet.

But snow time with my toddlers required mommy boots. My little ones readily wore garage sale Strawberry Shortcake and Ninja Turtles boots, even with PJs. They, too, waded in yucky gutters, despite my warnings.

Years later, they cornered me in a boot discourse similar to my go-go debate with Mom decades before. My children wanted me to spend a gazillion dollars on short-topped “boots” designed to frostbite toes.

When I refused, they left a row of sensible boots to an undisturbed existence in the closet — until I discovered my son’s worked well when I shoveled sidewalks.

I couldn’t wear the tall, black leather boots (my size!) I’d found on sale for five bucks.

I still wear them. I just leave them home when it rains. Or sleets. Or snows. Or. …

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Fess up. Do you wear your boots during yucky weather?

Laboring to Understand Labor Day

When did Labor Day first appear as a holiday on your childhood radar?

Image by Louise Dav from Pixabay.

For many, it occurred at school registration the Friday before Labor Day. Registration required rising early, cleaning up, and filling out cards. Labor Day didn’t rate a party — not a single piece of candy. We didn’t color smelly, mimeographed pictures, as we did even on St. Patrick’s Day.

Labor Day returned us to summer sanity. We picnicked and swam. However, at dusk, we were scrubbed in bathtubs, then sent to bed early.

Labor Day began as fun, but its ending? Not so much. Worse, we’d drag out before daylight the next day. The next 12 years!

Labor Day marked the onset of hard labor.

Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay.
Image by Ruslan Gilmanshin from Pixabay.

Once I grew accustomed to school mornings, though, Labor Day portended excitement: I’d play with kids besides my (yuck) siblings. I’d wear “new” hand-me-downs. Color with unbroken crayons. I’d get down to the business of learning and discover a world far beyond the cornfields.

No one explained how Labor Day began. Unions weren’t strong in my rural area. Labor Day parades consisted of Boy Scouts, tractor convoys, and bands with wavy marching lines and wavier tones.

Other than my giving up white shoes, Labor Day’s significance remained tied to school’s beginning — for me, then for my children.

Gradually, I learned the holiday was rooted in injustice, power struggles and political turmoil. I won’t attempt to untangle shame and blame. Instead, I’ll get down to the business of gratitude. To simply say, “thank you” to workers who make a difference in our lives.

Image by Alexa from Pixabay.

Thank you to the courteous, young server whose efficiency made me want to vote him in as President.

Image by An SiYu from Pixabay.

Thank you to factory workers who — despite repetitive, uninspiring work — care about quality.

Thank you to store greeters who offer real smiles. (You don’t think that’s work? Pretend you’re in a wedding reception line for eight hours.)

Thank you to housekeeping personnel who keep restrooms clean.

Thank you to all who labor with excellence when nobody’s watching.

I doubt the above would appreciate my coloring a mimeographed picture in their honor, but I hope my small tributes appear on their radar.

Though dedicated work may not be a picnic, it’s certainly something to celebrate every day.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you thanked a worker today?

Hand Me the Hand-Me-Downs

We often hear about recycling paper, plastic and metal to preserve our environment. Nowadays, we’re advised to take our conservation efforts up a notch by recycling clothing.

My family has carried on this practice for generations, never suspecting we were going green. My mother, the youngest of 12 children, lived with seven — yes, seven — older sisters’ hand-me-downs. If ever a girl preserved the planet for posterity, Mom did.

She brought this ecological mindset to her five children. With infallible mother-radar, she hunted my brothers down. Mom threatened them with death or extra baths to coerce them into trying on last year’s kneeless pants. She re-patched, rolled up, let down and let out. Mom stressed, guessed and pressed, shifting jeans from one brother to another.

My sister and I scorned our brothers’ childishness. We loved trying on clothes! We dug into boxes, throwing skirts, sweaters, and dresses like confetti, reviving friendships with favorite outfits. Until I discovered I could no longer button my beautiful ruffled green dress, purchased with last year’s precious birthday money.

Obviously, my mother had shrunk my dress. Why couldn’t she do laundry right?

My sister tried it on. Good for a couple more years’ wear, Mom said — on her. Sigh.

By all rights, I, as the oldest girl, should have enjoyed life without hand-me-downs. Instead, I wore them throughout my childhood. Something was always better than nothing. But the main reason I didn’t mind: I fell heir to my friend Angela’s glorious castoffs.

A year older than I, Angela never wore hand-me-downs; therefore, she was rich. Angela lived in the Big Town near the swimming pool, a glamorous existence I, surrounded by cornfields, could only dream about. She read trendy teen magazines and knew what clothes were hip. I read Alice in Wonderland and Little House on the Prairie. When my dad would have kept me dressed like my favorite characters, Angela helped me live in the 20th century, offering an annual treasure bag of school clothes.

One fateful year, though, my uncooperative body not only caved where hers curved, but, after one summer’s growth, I topped her by four inches. Recycling would have to take a different turn.

No one in our area held garage sales during the ’60s. However, my mother discovered an odd new business, a consignment shop. Mom bought me a red corduroy jumper and ruffled blouse to console me for the loss of my fashion pipeline.

I’m proud to say my family continues the recycling tradition. My sister and I still trade clothes when we get together. We practice globally responsible shopping, stimulating the U.S. economy as well. (Are we patriotic or what?)

Recycling can be a beautiful thing.

Me and my sister in 1970. We still swap outfits after all these years.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you “recycle” clothes?