Fitting In

Joy's post today
http://joyofsix.typepad.com/
about 'body piercing' brought this to mind - this little bit of a story I wrote last year and posted on my AOL Journal/blog,Juniper's World.


Posted-Aug, 2005

This was written-not to offend anyone- (Young friends-grandkids :) )
but just in remembering back - WAY BACK- to my own young years and how
peer pressure has always been!

...as I listen to an early collection of ELVIS, I can well remember the beginning of 'Rock and Roll'...
the new dances... THE TWIST!

...the mid-calf, full skirts of the girls with multi-layered and multi-colored
(And, oh so stiff and uncomfortable) crinolines underneath! (Jeans were not worn much by girls
in those days- not allowed in schools at all!)

...the levis of the boys, with rolled cuffs...button-up shirts (with turned up cuff on one side to hold
a pack of cigarettes) with just the lower buttons closed...the upper chest exposed!

Oh! WOW!!

...the Duck-Tail hair cuts that became a fad for both girls and boys! Very short cut, with both sides
brushed toward the center in back! Pony tails, too, were still in style! Long, straight hair was not in fashion
- curls were!! (smile)

...the sneaked smokes in the bathrooms....


SO- with those thoughts, I give you this...




Fitting In


She stands to the side, watching as the girls and boys mingle.

So self-assured the girls seem, with their hair- just so- the latest styles – going this way and that! ”How?” she wonders,”How does it stand so straight up…defying gravity?”
Some have sections falling, provocatively, across one eye, as impossibly straight hanging down, as the others’ Hair-dos are, sticking straight up!

She then notices the jeans! They are all long and faded, frayed at the bottom… patches! On most they are WAY below the bellybutton line …and she sees sparkly bangles attached to some girl’s bellybuttons! Gaudy belts attract any eye that might have missed looking, to that exposed, tight - or tubby- tummy. (As the case may be.)

Tattoos decorate many lower backs. “…Purely for the enjoyment of the onlooker.” she decides, as she can’t imagine these busy girls spending that much time with a 3-way mirror, admiring their own tattoos! Some are sporting rings in unexpected parts of their, otherwise, pretty faces! She gets a glimpse of sparkle in one girl’s mouth as she laughs with the mixed group of friends!

She looks, sadly, at her own, newly bought- mom approved- school clothes…of trim slacks and securely tucked in blouse. She runs her fingers through her freshly shampooed, naturally curly, un-teased, un- moussed and un-sprayed hair… wishing she had spiky or straight hair instead of curls!
Slowly, she un-tucks her neat blouse and quickly ties the two sides into a knot high above her slacks, directly beneath the bust-line she desperately wishes was more impressive!

Tentatively, she takes her first steps toward the girl with the butterfly tattoo across her lower back; with it’s bottom wings disappearing well below the beltline of her low slung jeans…


June Kellum
2005

Photo:

June- (ME) 1955

Redland Jr. High, South Florida