What does anyone remember about growing up? Hard to say, for the mind hangs onto the oddest of things sometimes. Memories of my own youth revolve around pancakes and panty girdles; pancakes for the the enjoyable times, and panty girdles for certain rites of passage that were not always the most positive experiences.
When you think about it, what a culture wears and what everyone eats, just about tells the whole story, since that information tends to relate whether or not the people of a particular time and place were happy and comfortable.
As a child in the 50’s and early 60’s, I grew up in a world that judged a person by her underwear. At least that’s how I felt, since around the fifth grade or so, my girl classmates seemed part of a private club whose uniform was a white, sleeveless undershirt.
The undershirt was quite plain, except for a pink bow at the neckline, and a girl had to have this piece of fabric, because in gym class locker rooms it was the only thing between her budding womanhood and the world around her.
For some woman nowadays, I suppose the undershirt brings fond memories. For me, however, it simply serves as a reminder of how I was never in sync with the rest of the girls my age. Just as I began wearing the correct undershirt, complete with pink bow, everyone else had acquired a new contraption with straps and hooks and cups. Not only did I shudder at the sight of anything with “cups”, I definitely didn’t have the necessary body parts with which to fill one of these items. As it was, I barely needed the undershirt. I suffered in silence for a few more years, quietly ignoring the snickers of the other girls and the teasing of the boys who would try to snap the back of a bra that wasn’t there.
Eventually though, my body allowed me to move to this next step in the sisterhood of underwear. I thought I could rest easy at this point, but just about that time the girls upped the stakes with an even more uncomfortable deviced called the panty girdle. This was a few years before the invention of pantyhose, so the panty girdle or a garter belt were the only options if a girl wanted to wear hose.
A garter belt looked rather perverse, so I opted for the panty girdle. My mother seemed thrilled that I had at long last become a woman. She immediately went out and bought me a panty girdle. It had its own pink bow as well, right at navel level; I guess so the wearer could feel feminine as she was being constricted to death.
My only fond memory involving a panty girdle is the time I helped my mother apply false fingernails for a special party. We glued every nail in place, polished each of them a bright pink. Mother’s hair and makeup were perfect and all she had left to do was get dressed. I had gone out to the living room to watch tv when I heard my mother scream from the bedroom. I ran to see what had happened. Mother stood there, the dreaded panty girdle pulled halfway over her hips, the false fingernails dangling from the waist of the girdle.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before some person sent from God liberated us by creating pantyhose, and while most women would never be burning their bras, at least a few of us were burning our panty girdles. Pantyhose weren’t perfect back then, however. They would usually “run” if you pulled them up too quickly, and more times than not, when I got up from a chair, the pantyhose didn’t get up with me but remained at my ankles.
No, I don’t long to return to my teenage years, thanks to the panty girdle, and its sister, pantyhose.
Pancakes were another matter altogether. I may not have liked the way we were expected to dress in those times, but the food was certainly delicious. Maybe that’s because my grandmother was the best cook around, and the fact that she didn’t even own a panty girdle probably had something to do with it. With her it was “take me or leave me.” No size ten was she, no dainty little lady unable to eat a bite because her panty girdle was too tight!
The best thing Grandmother ever cooked was pancakes. No one in my family since has been able to duplicate her buttermilk culinary works of art. Thick and fluffy they were not. These pancakes were thin and flat and barely stayed in the pan long enough to get brown. But piled high on a plate and smothered with butter, they were the only pancakess worthy of the best corn syrup around. Maple syrup wouldn’t do for these pancakes. They had to have the finest white Karo.
If I test my memory, I can recall other delightful dishes from my past, but none more memorable than those pancakes. And, if Grandmother were still around, I’m sure we could enjoy reminiscing together about the good ole’, bad ole’ days, when she watched me grow up amidst pancakes and panty girdles. And while we’d share a fondness for days gone by, I’m sure she would agree with me about one benefit of modern day life. While hardly anyone mentions panty girdles anymore, you can’t go very far without crossing paths with someone in our culture who still enjoys a good pancake now and then.
