Seventh grade was so difficult; it was a time of indecision and doubt. Since it was also a time of awakening self awareness, it was vitally important that one did the socially correct thing. Socially correct to one's peer group, that is. It could destroy in an instant what modicum of self-confidence you had acquired by simply having your classmates laugh at you. Such a thing has broken many older and stronger individuals. For me, there was the added pressure of knowing that my classmates looked to me for guidance and approval.
It was the first year that I was allowed to wear stockings . . . not pantyhose, which had not been invented yet, but real stockings and a practical white cotton garter belt. I was allowed to select fashionable, grown-up flats as well. It was also my first year without the long, fat, "sausage" curls bouncing around my face. I gazed with satisfaction at my "mature" reflection in the mirror with my hair brushed up and back.
Into this atmosphere, my doctor dropped a bomb and in 1959 when we still practiced air-raid drills, I knew what a bomb was! It was a relatively small thing which could destroy a life in a heart-beat. Because of a skin disease which caused my heels to split from being too dry, my doctor feared infection and recommended that I began wearing heavy cotton socks every day to conserve moisture in my feet. In those days, one did not disregard the advise of one's doctor. His advice was the gospel and was followed to the letter without question and without a second opinion.
We bought the socks on our way home from his office. They were so bulky that the tops folded down into thick donuts around my trim ankles. One problem not foreseen by my parents was the fact that they were too thick to fit into my beautiful flats. That offered me a slight reprieve since new shoes would also have to be purchased and we had to wait for another pay-day. The offending socks hung like some ghostly omen over the back of my dressing table chair, taunting me every morning and every evening. The rest of the day, I avoided my room so that I would not be reminded of the inevitable . . . it made great tears well up in my eyes and although I refused to cry, I had to breath in great gulping gasps not to.
While visiting my best friend, Robin, after school one afternoon, she dissolved into tears, her short, sleek brown page-boy bobbing up and down with every sob. Her doctor had prescribed ugly, orthopedic shoes for her to correct an invisible bone deformity of her left foot. It was necessary to prevent crippling as she got older. Since the shoes were so costly, her parents had not yet ordered them but were going to do so the following day. Robin, too, was a popular girl with our classmates and viewed this as a death-sentence.
We looked at Robin's choice of shoes: one style in black, brown or white. The white ones, though, rather resembled all-white saddle oxfords. Inspiration followed. It is true that necessity is the mother of invention. Several other cliches applied as well, but we only had to fool all of the people one time. Her parents ordered the white shoes; they would be delivered in two weeks. Meanwhile, we went shopping: Robin, her mother, my mother and me. We bought bulky white socks for Robin and white saddle oxfords for me.
On the third week, both Robin and I showed up at school clad in faux confidence, pleated skirts, bobby socks and white saddle shoes. We scoffed at anyone who snickered and implied that they just didn't know what was stylish. Within a month, the majority of the seventh-grade girls at Ockley Green School wore bobby socks and saddles. Before the end of the year, it was a fad echoed in many of the grade schools of Portland, Oregon.
Who would have believed that in 1959 some doctors not only still made house calls, they did fashion makeovers as well!
