Our class of seventh
graders was among the first in the new Hamburg Junior High building.
Even though ninth grade was technically high school, it was part of
our Junior High also. So I was three years in junior high and three
in senior high.
One of my more painful
memories of seventh grade has to do with ankle socks. I was still
wearing ankle socks every day with my dresses and skirts (no
pants/shorts allowed for females). The other girls were wearing
stockings, or they wore a kind of hose called over the knee socks.
Pantyhose was still a
couple of years away – stockings and over the knee socks
were held on with garters on a garter belt, or more commonly, garters
on a girdle. No lie!The over the knee socks were kind
of like tights – stockings in different colors, but separate legs
instead of together like tights.
I felt completely out of
place in my ankle socks. When you read about or hear about kids
middle school age griping about not having the right kind of clothes
or being laughed at for not dressing like everyone else – it is
hard to have sympathy. Why can't the kids be individuals? Why do they
think they have to have the expensive, trendy stuff just like
everybody else? Why to they have to fit in? And I did not want to
come across as a typical self centered teenager in front of my
parents with respect to my attire, but the ankle socks sure made me
feel small, made me want to be invisible.
If I asked for stockings
for Christmas, I thought my parents would say no because I was too
young for hosiery. But if I asked for over the knee socks,
perhaps that would be okay. So I casually remarked one day that I
would like some over the knee socks for Christmas that year.
(And that would mean going a whole half of the school year in the
ankle socks before the holidays – that shows some endurance for an
awkward environment, doesn't it? Delayed gratification even if I was
a selfish teen?)
My folks had not heard of
over the knee socks, so I had to describe them. “That means
you would have to wear a girdle!” Mom said. And I assumed at
that point, my request was dead.
But under the Christmas
tree that year, a package was unwrapped that had what my Mom thought
was over the knee socks. Two pair! One navy blue, and the
other, green, I think.
They were not thin like
tights – but thick, like socks, actually – more like a sweater!
Oh my gosh! Well, I had said, over the knee socks, didn't I?
In another package was the girdle to hold up these new sweater-thick
contraptions. I don't think my face betrayed any dissatisfaction with
Santa's choice of over the knee socks – I'm fairly sure Mom
never knew these were not exactly what I had been asking for.
This seventh grade
memory is really major, for me, a really big deal – defining my
first year of junior high – but for Mom and Dad? They did not
remember over the knee socks at all years later when I
was brave enough to mention them again.
And they were a heck of a
lot better than ankle socks! I alternated the over the knee socks
every day.
It was not too long after
that Mom gave me my first pair of stockings – since I had the
girdle anyway, why wait until I was older, and the hose would look
better with my church clothes.
So I started wearing the
hose to school too – alternating with the quickly wearing out and
looking drabber by the day over the knee socks. The nylons got
snags and then runs. And the runs turned to holes. But I was too
sheepish to ask for more pairs of stockings – so I wore the first
pair forever as they deteriorated. They were better than ankle socks.
Gosh – stuck in a weird
place. Feeling awkward at school – never fitting in, although no
one ever made fun of me to my face because of the ankle socks. After
I stopped wearing them, however, I heard friends making snide remarks
about other girls who had ankle socks. Oh, talk about wanting to
crawl into a hole and never come out again!
And I was totally
uncomfortable at home – never really able to express my feelings to
my family about clothes or anything.
That's how I got goofy.
At home I was silly with
far out opinions – and usually my chattering was ignored – which
was better than being judged or put down or teased for my real
feelings; at school I joked and was never serious – so different classmates would not think I had the audacity to believe I was good enough to be included in their crowd.
I guess everyone has his
or her own over the knee socks story to tell from that age.
This was harder to write than I thought!
129 20150509 Over the
Knee Socks
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