Christmas in Chicago, Battle Creek, and Lansing

[gerisullivan]

238 miles and just as many smiles. Clear roads, good day, good Christmas.

The trip odometer is now up over 2,300 miles. Depending on what the next couple of days bring, I may well turn over 100,000 miles on the main odometer before I leave Michigan.

How many of you reading this still have your high school gymsuit? My sister found mine when going through some barrels in Daddy's basement last spring. She cleaned and pressed it, and wrapped it up as a present for me to open. There's my mother's handwriting, in large letters embroidered across the back: "Mary Beth Fitzgerald." The whole thing is a hoot. If only I fit into a size 12, junior miss, I'd model it for you. That's a size 12, junior miss from 1968-69, mind you.

There are many more stories from the joy of the day. Christmas does tend to be rich in story-fodder. But for tonight, what's above is what's getting written.

...and to all, a good night!

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I suspect that opening a present to find my old gym uniform would cause traumatic flashbacks for weeks, if not months! I like recycled nostalgia presents in general, but, arrgh, gym class!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Sue thought of giving it to me for my birthday, but decided that would be too cruel. I never hated the gymsuit as others did. I thought it was a stupid piece of clothing at the time, but am amused by it now.

Gavi is lucky that Sue gave it to me after I'd been to Minnepolis. Otherwise, I would have encouraged her to try it on, just to see what we had to endure back in our day.

I only have a couple of fond memories from gym class. One of them involves skipping it to go hang out with my boyfriend who set type and ran the small printing press in the room off the shop class. The other is the source of my name -- one teacher called me, and my sister before me, "Fitzpatrick" saying "one Irishman is the same as another." My friends picked up the "Geri" from the dropped "gerald" and started calling me Geri Fitzpatrick for fun. The Geri stuck, which is how I got the name I have today.

Observant readers will note that neither of these formative, fun memories related to gym class have anything whatsoever to do with the actual activities we did there.

I did like the dancing section. The memory of learning the box step is still with me today, perhaps because it was so easy, yet we drilled and drilled and drilled on it.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking middle aged things, like how back when I was a kid....

We had gym suits, all the way up to junior high school, 1972. Our were powder blue, snap closed, and had something like M. Fitzgerald on the back, and Mary Beth F. over the left breast. We did our own embroidery, I think, but maybe I think that because I did a lot of embroidery back then.

We had to wear white knee socks with this. The entire outfit was washed only three times a year: Christmas break, Easter break, and summer vacation.

And we had to take full-body naked showers after gym class, with the teacher watching to make sure you actually got wet. Otherwise most of us would just stick a leg in the shower spray and call it good.

K.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yep. Mine is navy blue rather than powdered, and the name seems to be on the back only, but the snaps are as you describe. I was amused to see there's a genuine button-down collar. It's incongruous compared to the snaps.

I think ours were washed more often.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I didn't take gym in high school. I was on the drill team. I still have my letter from it that was stitched to our uniform, but I don't know if we ever owned the uniforms.

[pameladean]

If I had owned my own gymsuit rather than having it provided weekly by the school, still reeking from the last occupant even despite having allegedly been laundered, I'd have burned it up in lieu of attending graduation ceremonies and been deeply satisfied.

P.