This is my post for #memoirmonday #20 Which fads did you embrace growing up? Hosted by @ericvancewalton
I lived a very sheltered life, Dad controlled what I could wear and what was watched on the TV, and what music I could listen to.
I do not think I was allowed to embrace any fads, dad was very strict. He liked shorts to be below the knees.
For most of my younger years, I was either in underpants or nothing at all. Back then we did not have many visitors. As I got older I wore more clothes but they were made by my mother. When my parents divorced, Dad got custody of us and he did all of the shopping for our school clothes, we had to wear what he liked and he liked nothing to do with what was popular.
We lived in a campground on an inlet and all of the camping kids that swam with me had bathing suits, we had to swim in our clothes, I remember I was thirteen when my mother bought me the babydoll style swimsuit. I was so happy to have a bathing suit and it was the fad at the time. My Dad threw a fit because he did not like the bottoms of it, even though the top covered the bottom.
Dad did not like bell-bottom pants or crop tops, but when I turned 16 I started wearing them, I guess he had given up on fighting with me by then.
I remember a time when an old school bus came to the inlet, it was filled with young people, Dad made them leave, and he would not let them get off of the bus, he called them damn hippies. I was standing by the edge of the road watching as they drove by, there was a teenage girl with long brown hair, she was looking out of the window at me, we waved at each other. She wore a leather headband and a choker, I remember staring at her and thinking I wish I were her, I wanted to be on that bus and be able to dress however I wanted. We watched each other until the bus was out of my sight. I have always wondered who she was and why she was on that bus, she did not look that much older than me.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, people wore these small different colored glasses, I wanted a pair of rose-colored ones, but I never got them and I doubt my dad would have let me wear them. He called them hippy shit. That is what he said about anything that was in style.
In no way was I allowed to listen to rock music, which was all the fad with my friends, I secretly bought records but I could not play them when Dad was in the house. One day I made the mistake of thinking he would be gone for the day and had the Woodstock album playing, the Fish song came on as he walked through the door. He busted both of my albums. I am glad I did not have the other albums lying out so he could see them.
photos are mine