One Reason Why Texas Suits Me

          I needed to change the name of my blog. Moving to Texas took me through the actual move and the first few months living in Kerrville. But the new year had come. I needed to think of a different name.

          On Saturday I went to J.C. Penney and bought a black sweater dress on sale for $10.80. I love a bargain!  That night I decided to surprise John and wear it out to dinner. I put on black tights, the dress (which has a cowl collar, long sleeves and comes to mid-thigh), and the black Tony Lama boots my mom bought me about eighteen years ago. (They’re still comfortable).  I washed my face, put on make up, fluffed my hair and looked in the mirror. I looked pretty darn good for a woman about to collect social security!  I said aloud, “Texas suits me!” and knew that would be the new title of my blog.

          I remember when I first started teaching in California, about twenty years ago, how horrified I was to see male teachers in baggy Bermuda shorts. What sort of example was this setting for the kids?  I always looked up to my teachers and particularly remember Miss Beverly Gale, my sixth-grade teacher, who was twenty-two and looked like Jackie Kennedy with her bouffant hairdo, stylish sheaths, and pointed pumps. When she first started teaching she would match her nail polish to her outfits. But after a while I noticed she stuck with clear because she didn’t have time to do her nails more than once a week.

          Miss Gale was a role model for me: she was smart and pretty. The two were not mutually exclusive.  A few years later I was wearing dresses custom made for me by my talented mother, who worked with my father all week and still made time to sew for me.  It was the mid-sixties. I remember a yellow gingham dress that I wore with yellow sandals that were not part of our dress code. I was sent to the office where I had to call my mom and ask her to bring my white flats.   Another time a teacher made me kneel down to see if my shirt hit the ground. It didn’t, so I had to have my mom bring a longer one.

          Boys were not allowed to have hair curling over their collars. I still have the clipping from a 1966 Palisadian Post, where students picketed with signs that said, “Jesus Had Long Hair”.  Girls could not wear pants. Very soon things started to change and I changed too. Working at Macy’s in San Mateo, the winter of 1970, as a Kelly Girl selling perfume, I was admonished because I wasn’t wearing a bra. By then I had thrown away all my bras and stopped combing hydrogen peroxide through my hair to make it blond. I had stopped shaving my legs. I wanted to be “natural.”

          That phase lasted until David Bowie and Elton John performed in outrageous outfits. I gave away my suede and gave up the dusty, commune look.  In London I bought a pair of mutli-colored, snake-skin platform shoes. Soon came the disco phase with satin and sparkles, followed by the big-hair, big-earrings, big shoulder-pad eighties.

          And then something happened. Suddenly it was okay to not change out of our work-out clothes.  Wearing Reeboks and Nikes meant we prized fitness over fashion. Skirts which had been extremely short in the sixties and seventies, then long in the eighties, disappeared all together from women’s wardrobes.  No more panty hose! My skirt hangers now held parachute pants, linen and corduroy, and eventually jeans. And I mean just jeans, mostly black, some dark blue.

          Back to when I started teaching in the 1990s – I had a purple sweater dress that I wore once and then hung in the back of my closet because, compared to the other teachers, I felt overdressed. Everyone dressed like a P.E. teacher.

          This was the way it was, then, when I moved to Texas. I did not own any dresses. (Caveat: I admit I have a box of “vintage clothes” that includes the dress I wore the day I met Roger in 1971, among other nostalgic items I don’t want to part with.)

          When I interviewed at the local elementary school, the principal, a petite blonde, was wearing  a little black suit. I felt a pang that took me back to sixth grade and Miss Gale.  Later, on my first trip to HEB, the “has it all” supermarket, I found that many of the women shoppers were well dressed, and well made-up. Nothing ostentatious, just tasteful, well-fitted, well-made clothing.  I wanted to look like them!

          Now, I won’t go so far as to say that everyone in California is a slob and everyone in Texas has class.  I have many well-dressed friends. And there are plenty of women in Texas who looked like they just rolled out of bed. But for the most part, there seems to be a sense of pride that is not vanity, but more a consideration for others.        

          Am I shallow? I think not.  I think that we make an impression on the people we encounter. And the impression I want to give is of someone who takes the time to present a pleasing appearance for those who cast their eyes upon me. That includes myself, who doesn’t want to look in the mirror and see some old, dowdy frump staring back.