EVERY WOMAN HAS ONE

Throughout history the ubiquitous female breast has been exposed, exploited and envied. From the under dressed native women in the Polynesian islands to actress Jane Russell, for whom Howard Hughes is said to have designed a bra, the breast is a subject of interest. Those who do’t have them, want them. Those who have them, want them bigger.

Olivia de Haviland, star of “Gone With the Wind”, while living in France for a time, wrote a humorous book, “Every Frenchman Has One”. I read her book with interest because a cousin now lives in the house de Haviand resided in during the filming of “Gone With the Wind”.

Apparently the difference between the French and the American view of the bosom can be summed up this way: the American philosophy is of the Bosom Rampant, while the French subscribe to the principle “The Bust Trussed.”

This attitude became clear to her, expressed in the world of couture. She was faithful to the House of Dior as it went through a series of three head designers. She found it a question as to which one tried the hardest to flatten her bosom. Not permanently, just under a dress.

She wrote “The whole thing started at my first fitting on my first Dior dress. There I was standing in the fitting room, half undressed, in merely my stockings, my slip and my bust, and the next moment I was fully clothed and bustless. At first I couldn’t think where I’d gone to. Then I was struck rigid by the idea that some sort of instantaneous and lasting transformation had occurred and that I’d suddenly lost forever what is every girl’s pride. Springing out of my paralysis and into action, I looked frantically down m,y decollete to see what had happened to me. Fortunately I was still there, both of me. But bound and gagged. By a framework of net and bone. The dress’s basic foundation.

“You mustn’t think, here, that I have one of those overexuberant superstructures that really needs lashing to the decks to keep it from going overboard. No, no not at all. It is, rather the sort that you might call appropriate, quite becoming, so it’s been said. Neat but not gaudy. But try as I may, I have never been able to convince the French that the American way is better, and they have always won the War of Containment.

“Of course, I know just as well as you do, that back home in the States, if a girl’s got a delicate, elfin 32, she has no chance but to commit suicide. If she has a tender, swelling 34, she can however, enter a nunnery. If hers is a warm and promising 36, there’s hope. On the other hand, with a cummbersome 40, Hollywood is bound to find her. And with anything over 42, national adulation is assured.”

.

“But I must say I do look darn well dressed. And I’m beginning to accept the French notion that a girl’s bust is really more important when she’s got her clothes off tan when she’s got them on.’

IT’S IN THE GENES

“A HAT FOR ALL SEASONS” watercolor painting by kayti sweetland rasmussen

Is there a different category for each of those tiny gene things we confidently assume make up our personality? Just because Great aunt Hattie was an accomplished oboe player, will that make us a musician? If Uncle Henry cashed it in at the ripe old age of 102, does that mean we will follow suit?

Of course not, what a silly thought. But what about the clothes shopping gene? I can only answer for myself, and I’m sorry to say that because of the women in my family and their example, I have not only spent an inordinate amount of time and money in the rag trade, but have passed that gene on to my female descendants, including a ten year old great granddaughter, to my shame.

Call me shallow, but I even remember the new coat I had at age 11 when we went to see “Gone With the Wind”. The Depression made it difficult for people to indulge themselves, so that pink coat was a one-off experience for me.

I can’t remember a time when shoes have not attracted my attention; either on someone’s feet or in a store display. Perhaps it was the effect of the shiny Mary Jane’s my Grandmother bought me. I spent a lot of time washing their soles at the end of the day. One of my first jobs in dressing window displays was trying to make men’s work boots attractive. This was before I made a business of doing it a few years later.

No one can go into the clothing trade unless you truly love clothes. My grandmother, mother and aunt were accomplished seamstresses who also had a great deal of good taste, and I became comfortable sitting at a sewing machine as well. One of my daughters at age six was annoyed with me for not mending the hem of a dress as soon as she wanted it, so she grabbed a needle and thread and did it herself. I think sewing may be a lost art among the young today.

My mother in law tired of sewing soon after I married and gifted me with her old electric sewing machine. They were not always electrified. As a small child staying with an auntie, I slept in her sewing room, where her old foot pedal Singer machine stood.

My ‘new’ sewing machine was a Damascus Grand. It had copper fittings inside and when it need repair, there was only one old man in town who knew how to fix it. It perked away for years, keeping me and the girls presentable, eventually turning out clothes for the grandchildren. When it finally gave up the ghost, we made a lamp out of the head, which stands now in my studio.

We seldom throw things away, sometimes keeping them long after their usefulness is a memory. It is fortunate to have a friend of the same size and taste as your own, and closet cleaning is a fine time to share. Some years ago a friend called and asked if I could come help her clear out her closet. You can only do that with a close friend. At the end of the afternoon, glass of wine in hand, she decided she could bear to pass along a pair of light green sling back shoes I had admired. A few days later she knocked on my door at 7:30 a.m. to say she really wanted them back. What could I do? Sometimes we become too attached to our belongings.

So saying, I said a sad goodbye to my collection of ‘never-to-be-worn-again shoes by loading them into the trunk of a friend’s car. She is happy.

VANITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN

It’s a shame we worry so much about ourselves. I know that men have the same problems, but they don’t seem to agonize over them the way we women do. With so much going on in the world, a few wrinkles on the neck should be riding low on the totem pole.

A little tuck here and there on the face and body gets you back in the race, but there doesn’t seem to be much to be done about the poor neck. Audrey Hepburn simply wore a turtle neck sweater, which worked for me as well for awhile. A nice scarf covers up a multitude of crevasses too.

Men seem to grow nice flabby turkey wattles under the chin, which takes the attention away from all the dips and creases which surely lie underneath. It really isn’t fair either, because while women simply look old, men become more interesting. Just look at Tony Bennett or Cesar Romero. They started out looking like greasy mafiosi and turned out in their senior years to be pretty sexy. It’s quite noticeable now that Tony is singing duets with Lady Gaga.

The mother in law of a friend was a frequent visitor to her plastic surgeon and actually looked quite striking. While sitting at a cocktail party and passing more than the time of day with a decidedly younger man, she stood and walked away. The surprise and disgust on his face was primal. She could do wonders with her body and hair, but nothing could hide the fact that she was no spring chicken.

The thing which really grabs my attention though, are the clothes some women wear trying to recapture a lost youth. The amount of money they spend could be saved if only they had saved their college clothes for 30 or 40 years. The styles keep returning if you are patient. Men don’t have that problem either, because their basic wardrobe never changed.

Women used to watch the skirt length from year to year to see what was in and what was out. I did it religiously each year. If they got shorter, you simply cut off the surplus; if they got longer you were in trouble. I understand they are going longer this year, which is a really good idea. I have worried about all the cute TV personalities with crossed legs in case they went shorter.

Some clever fashion maven some years ago solved the problem of skirt length by advocating pants for women. Some years ago my husband’s boss said to tell one trouser-clad woman to change into a skirt. Dr. A cautioned him to take note that it was then the 1960’s. I was once told that my boss did not approve of jeans. Since my job was teaching a sculpture and pottery class, and since my boss was a good friend, I simply went in and taught my class.

No one seems to have come up with a solution the craggy neck. I’m sure it has puzzled the plastic surgeon business for years. I have begun trying to guess the age of each of the TV women. The hair may be a bright halo on their head, and the makeup has certainly been applied according to the direction which came with it, but you can’t hide the neck.

I roamed through the stores yesterday, looking for the perfect scarf to hide my crags. After an hour or so, I bought two pair of socks and came home.

GOLD HEARTS AND HOCKEY STICKS/Kate’s Journal

Episode 8
New London, 1940

In New London, several dogs came and went and all belonged to someone else until Rex, the king of all dogs, followed me home from school. Rex was a fine looking animal, showing a strong resemblance to German Shepherd ancestry, and referred to in those days as a Police Dog. He was the first dog I gave my heart to.

Our last months in Connecticut went fast, and I learned to sing in the outhouse, play hockey with the boys and build my own sled. I became a good correspondent to my grandpa and to Mrs. Jaquish, an old next door neighbor of ours in Long Beach.

Grandpa had been a good hockey player in Montreal, and we planned to skate together once I returned home, though that never happened. He was small in stature, probably only about 5’6″ when he was young, but apparently very fast. My memories of him are of a humorous man who could wiggle his ears and make jokes. He claimed my grandmother was still his wife, though she married three more times after they were divorced, which shows a strong sense of renunciation on his part.

Grandfather Jim Black

Christmas 1940 was a nonentity as we had our orders to return to Long Beach in a week. People who live in rented furnished apartments can pack in a hurry, so putting our few belongings in the old Chevrolet which brought us here, we were ready to go. My gift from my Dad that Christmas was a gold heart locket with my initials on it, in which I put small photos of my parents. I still have it tucked away, and the hockey stick of my own I had asked for never came to be.

Long Beach, 1940

Back at Grandma’s our family had grown as my aunt Corinne had divorced and with her cute three year old daughter now had the coveted back bedroom where Harry Hance had lived for so long.

I was sent to stay with Aunt Georgia for the summer, and my Dad came there to say goodbye, looking quite handsome in his new uniform of a Master Chief. He was shipping out but didn’t know where.

Torrance, 1940-1941

When school started in September, my mother bought a new blue Plymouth sedan and we moved back to Grandma’s this time to a gracious old house in Torrance, California.

Grandma had met a nice widower with whom she was “keeping company” who lived in Torrance. Our new house had lots of bedrooms to rent which soon filled up with two or three young women till we were nicely crammed again.

One of our roomers was a tennis player with a large and shapely bosom who gave me an old racket, and instructed me in the basics while I practiced banging the ball against the garage door in the back alley by the fig tree. She seemed to live in her white tennis outfit, which probably helped her game. Since I did not have one, I put it on my Christmas list.

One evening I walked in on my mother and aunt being given instruction in the proper method of putting on their bra. According to her, she gained her extra dimensions by bending at the waist and letting gravity do the rest. I’m not sure she deserved being considered a good teacher either of tennis or the fitting of lingerie, since I saw no difference in the measurements of either of my relative’s busts, and I never became a great tennis player.

ONE OF LIFE’S FINAL INSULTS

There is no point in reminding people that Life is no longer fair. We all know that, and each day the scales become balanced in the other guy’s favor. The fashion scale favors the tall, thin and young. I am thin, but not tall and not particularly young.

High school reunions bring out the hope of putting in an appearance so elegant it will make the entire class wish they had been nicer to you when they had the chance. It’s only human nature.

Though not in San Francisco, Nordstrom is the best we have to offer on our side of the Bay, and I had expectations which after an hour or two were dashed into disappointment.

Clothing today is targeted to the very young and athletic, and in many cases untidy. I covered all departments of the store including the infants and lingerie, and decided that though I was willing to buy, there was nothing crying out for my credit card. The woman who has been my personal shopper for years is approaching retirement, and realizes that high quality elegant clothing is no longer selling.

Lately my husband and I have been watching and re-watching the 1920’s themed TV series “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”. The murders are suitably bloody, the 1920’s music is charming, Miss Fisher is adorably spunky, but over and above all that, the CLOTHES are a fashion triumph. But do they offer any of these garments in the local department stores? Not at all.

We have a large community of Asian people whose women are short, thin and a variety of ages, all of whom are usually well-turned out. I need to make friends and find out where they shop for clothes.

Meanwhile we will be attending my 70th High School reunion, and it really won’t make a bit of difference what I wear—it’s not really about the clothes.

SECOND HAND ROSE

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. What used to be called “second hand stores” now are euphemistically known as “thrift stores which sometimes peddle high-end goods to economically savvy shoppers. Not as snooty as antique stores, but a step up from a junk store. In other words, they attract smart people who watch their pennies. Barbra Streisand wailing “Second Hand Rose” gave us a taste of what you could buy second hand.

We ran across a good example a week or so ago in San Juan Baptista when we spotted a great-looking junk store along the road called “Fat Willie’s which carried every sort of miscellany anyone could ever want. Roaming through the town itself we were drawn into “Fat Willie’s Antiques”; a store which brooked no bargaining, but which carried your grandmother’s china and furniture made by fellows like Chippendale, Duncan Phyfe and Hans Wegner (my personal favorite). Between the two stores, Willie was covering all the bases.

As a child my grandmother dragged me along to antique stores while she looked for old china and crystal pieces. I still have a crystal sugar bowl with a broken handle she gave me when I was 14.

In 1942, after the Depression was over, but while the War was still on, my grandmother, mother and aunt showed up each wearing fur coats. It was the first I ever heard that you could buy something that someone else had already used. A real Second Hand Store with “hand-me-downs”. Now, in case you have ever wondered, that term was used by Jewish immigrant merchants who sometimes hung garments on high racks, and when someone asked to see a certain piece would tell his associate to “hand me down” that coat or whatever.

At the suggestion of a friend some years ago, I volunteered my services to the Ladies Home Society in Oakland, California, a charity for the benefit of elderly ladies of refinement. My job was in the small thrift shop sorting through all manner of goods, including clothes, furniture, linen, etc. donated by the members. As first responders, we had first choice in pricing and perhaps purchasing the good stuff. I bought so many clothes that my children laughingly told me they would have to give it all back to Grandma’s Attic when I died. I was so naive at the time I could not believe that some of the lovely embroideries, handmade lace and household goods would not be cherished by children of those who were donating their belongings. Older and wiser friends assured me that the style favored by the next generation doesn’t always include their parent’s residual possessions, but donated clothing, especially beautiful clothing, has great appeal.

Today’s Thrift Stores seem to come in two types: non-profit and those which can make a lot of money for their owners. We knew of someone whose family had three large thrift stores. We keep a box in the garage for things we no longer use and donate to Hope Services, a local non-profit store which gives to the mentally challenged, a group our daughter worked for after college where she had majored in the mentally challenged. We have a well-decked out friend who proudly shows off his “bargain” attire which he picked up at a thrift store after serious and judicious shopping.

When I was teaching pottery classes, I encouraged students to donate their “failures” to a thrift store. After all, “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure”, and something handmade is infinitely better than a cheap import.

BEYOND THE BOTTOM LINE

When I was a little girl in what, God forbid, might be called the “olden days,” I had a great many relationships with stores and the people in them. I went grocery shopping with my mother and with my grandmother and sometimes with my great aunt where Piggley-Wiggley was a regular, and See’s candy a treat. The milk and produce stores came to us, and were sometimes good for maybe an apple or a bunch of grapes. I remember butcher shops because you could write your name with your toe in the sawdust on the floor.

Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park, California 1920

We played store which was easy because all you needed was a board and something to balance it on like a couple of chairs, and a few cans from your mother’s pantry. I was caught in the act one day by my father coming home early to find me “selling” flowers off the front porch steps, flowers I had liberated from a neighbor’s garden. So I went out of the floral business.

Escher, maybe an idea of what early stores looked like in a crowded town.

As time went on, stores moved up and became multi storied.

The business of making all these stores attractive became important, as did the business of enticing people into them. The stores with the expensive merchandise were the most fun, and I once even considered the impossible desire to actually live in one.

Think of it: elevators to take you upstairs, restaurants, departments catering to all your needs. Everything to make life pleasant and all under one roof.

When we moved to Alameda, we often took the ferry to San Francisco where the really big stores were; The City of Paris, I. Magnin, the stuff of dreams. My mother and grandmother and I would sweep into the glove department at the White House and begin the ritual of buying a pair of gloves. You didn’t just point to a pair and say “I’ll take that one.” The saleslady would put your elbow on a a little velvet pillow and place her elbow alongside yours, as though poised for an Indian wrestle. She would turn and flip open several of the hundreds of little drawers that lined the wall. She then placed a number of small packets of gloves on the counter and then began the effort to try them on your hand. This was not something to take lightly, as it might take several tries to get just the right glove. It was almost as much fun as hats!

Years later, taking my daughters to these same stores, I confessed my early urge to dwell in these marble halls.

When we moved to Seattle, I found my dream in the Frederick & Nelson store in downtown Seattle.

Frederick & Nelson had their own dark green delivery vans, uniformed young women manning the elevators, a tearoom where my favorite lunch soon became a turkey sandwich on cranberry nutbread, introduced to me by my friend Katie Johnsen. There was a beauty shop, candy counters which sold Frango Mints, a melt in the mouth chocolate, and a monthly change of decor. Surely everything necessary to live “the Good Life”. All this without even mentioning Christmas. The window displays were spectacular, and the inside of the store fulfilled every child’s glowing Christmas fantasy.

Like so many of the fine old stores of the past, Frederick & Nelson has long gone out of business, succeeded by the Bon Marche, Macy’s and more. The fancy accoutrements have disappeared, supplanted by acres of clothing rounders and disinterested salespeople. Macy’s however, now sells Frango Mints which is a tiny touch with the past. Surely there is still something below the bottom line.

THE OLD GREEN SWEATER

Some things take on a life of their own. This is the way of my father’s old green sweater. He didn’t really wear it much at the end of his life, but I had thought it a would be a stylish addition to his wardrobe in his nursing home.

After he passed away, I draped it over the chair in my painting studio, reluctant to let him go. Though it is many sizes too large for me, I snuggle into the old green sweater in winter, feeling his presence once more.

We tend to keep the important things in our lives close at hand. My studio is such a place of comfort. It is crowded with things from past, present and future. Doohickies and thingamaabobs crowd the walls and hang from the ceiling. One great granddaughter who was by nature a quiet and sensitive baby, screamed her lungs out each time I brought her into this room. Bad karma I guess, but for some reason she smiled happily when carried into the sculpting studio. I have no answer for this.

All I can say is that my spirits rise upon entering this overblown and overcrowded haven and I think my Dad would approve.

OUT OF THE WOODS

“Out Of The Woods” sculpture by kayti sweetland rasmussn

It’s incredible what crazy thoughts come to fruition when wine glows sleepily in the stomach and the fire glows happily on the hearth. It was so for us many years ago while enjoying good after dinner conversation with our friend Emmett Oliver after a day of fishing. “Why don’t we all go hiking through the Olympics” he asked. It seemed like a good idea,and it was his home territory and the fact that he would come with us made it the best idea in the world.

Emmett Oliver’s house on the Hood Canal

We got the maps out, and from our location at Lilliwaup at the Hood Canal, Washington, there were no end of good starting places. Rivers ran straight through the Olympic Mountain to the ocean, and with some bearing fascinating names like Queets, Duckabush, Hamma Hamma and Dosewallips, who could resist.

We were city folk living in California at the time, and though we were long time campers, I had never seen a backpack let alone carry one. Our plan was not to hike the entire width, but to do a manageable 15 or 20 mile hike and then come back. It would condition us for a longer future hike.

We had to take advantage of friends who had Boy Scouts in order to borrow backpacks and other necessary supplies. We borrowed a couple of backpacks, one with wooden frame from a father and the other smaller one with exposed metal pipe frame from his son. We gave them a trial run around the block, and then began loading them up for a ten day hike.

We drove back to Seattle and the Hood Canal, and found that Emmett could not go with us. So we strapped the loads which would be our homes onto our city slicker backs and set out for the Duckabush trail.

We first stopped at the General Store in Brinnon and bought candy bars and a large bag of grapes. I began to feel the weight of my pack with its metal frame cutting into my tender shoulders before we even crossed the highway into the woods, but Dr. A. ex-Boy Scout as he is, strode confidently into our new leafy green home.

Along with the discomfort in my shoulders and back, my feet began to join the painful chorus as my new unfamiliar boots began to pinch.

To take my mind off the pain, I sang loudly. It wasn’t long before my stomach began to rebel from the sweet grapes, and I begged to sit on a nearby rock. We had not made very good time toward our expected resting place for the night which was a small hut used by backpackers deeper into the woods.

We were soon overtaken by a noisy group of people coming our way, disturbing all sense of peacefulness in the forest. Coming around the bend, keeping a fast pace was a troop of small Boy Scouts and their Leader, behaving as if they were on a day walk in the park (which they were) instead of on this great hiking experience like us. They would learn the secrets that old trails and stones only tell children. I would try to learn them in the next ten days.

The first night, while listening to the forest sounds, I imagined bears and mountain lions as well as bearded unwashed tramps joining us in the campers’ hut. Though no large four-legged beasts attacked us during our hike, we always had the company of small furry critters who scampered across sleeping bags and faces each night.

The early mornings were one of my favorite times of the day, when birdsong greeted us and sunlight lay in bright puddles on the floor of the forest. The other time was at the end of the hiking day, when nursing bruises and back pain, I could drop my pack and lay on my back watching the bats take off on their evening flight for food.

Olympic Rainforest

Some of the largest trees on the planet cradled us to sleep each night. Douglas Fir, Sitka Spruce, Red Cedar, and always ferns and moss. We were not to escape the frequent rain giving it the rainforest name, and on nights we did not reach a camper hut, we were sheltered by our small and cozy tube tents which had the habit of leaking, until we awoke several times with soggy sleeping bags.

Five days into the woods we had reached our goal and turned back toward civilization. We were seasoned hikers by now, though our blisters would take awhile to heal, and at the end of the trail, we were ready for the next long distance hike, this time with our own back packs.

Through the years, backpacking became a favorite kind of vacation, often with grandsons who still load up and take off into the woods.

SPC 50, A HAT & SUNGLASSES

I won’t say that Dr. Advice is thrifty, but he does like a bargain. One of his most recent finds was a lovely pair of sunglasses which were tucked into a bin at a Thrift Store, much like candy bars at the check out counter at the grocery store. Through the years he has gone through many pairs of sunglasses which mysteriously disappear occasionally after a day in the garden. Now and then a lost pair will surface after a rain, having been buried under leaves, bark or soil during a garden transformation. However, since our relentless days of summer sun seem to have implanted themselves indefinitely, he is again in need of sunshades. As I waited in line at the Thrift store a few weeks ago to pay for my $.75 copy of a defunct Gourmet magazine with a gorgeous cake on its cover, he gleefully brandished his purchase while announcing that he had only paid $.99 for them! “Yes, I agreed, a grand bargain indeed, but they are GIRL’S glasses—they have diamonds on the sides!” “So what,” he replied, “they only cost 99 Cents!”

A few days later, the gaudy glasses disappeared, and a deep funk supplanted Dr. Advice’s usually cheery attitude. The search was on, and we circulated throughout the house each looking in likely spots without success. Discouraged, my dear one went to take the garden bins to the curb for garbage collection. As he checked the contents of the bin, he spied a glimmer of light flickering from between the leaves of grass and weeds. Deciding that it could be emanating from something of possible importance, he tossed the leaves aside and there to his surprise lay his sunglasses. Happiness reigned supreme once more.

Our daughter looked at the sunglasses and informed him that “Dad! They’re GIRL’S glasses!” She got the same reply “But they only cost me 99 cents!”

Today he sat on them and broke the frame, so I went to the hardware store and paid $7.99 for glue to mend them. A grand bargain.