A Dress, A Shirt, A Famous Man And A Teen

A true story about a sixteen year old girl, a forty-four year old married woman and some beautiful dresses  “Who I am, your approval is not needed. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” When I was a little kid, we always tried to please our parents. We never spoke back or ever said no to a request by them. We were good kids and we respected our family with being excellent children. We did not have as much material items as the children do now days. We appreciated every item we personally owned. I had a baby doll that my Uncle Louie bought me and it had a china face. I had to be careful playing with her and I was always gentle handling her. I had a few books, a tea set where I played hostess and I poured tea and served imaginary crackers and cakes. My brother had a bike, toy soldiers and books. Each birthday and at Chanukah, we received two more possessions. We sure took care of them, they lived on a shelf in my bedroom and until I took them down, that was their home. When a girlfriend came over, she brought her few possessions too and she joined me playing with her’s and mine. We were content, we were not bombarded on the television with notice of new toys, DVD’s and other electronic things.There was no television until I was fifteen. By then, no more tea serving or dolls or toy soldiers. My brother rode his bike every day and he did not outgrow that until I guess he was sixteen and went off to college. For my sweet sixteen party, Mom surprised me a few weeks in advance in telling me we would have an all-girl luncheon to celebrate it and it would be downtown at a nice restaurant called Baum’s. We had a room to ourselves and I had about ten or eleven friends there and we had a nice time. I really felt rich to be able to have this setting for my 16th birthday. I wore a nice two piece plaid dress with the colors of rose, blue and yellow. I was very slim then and Mom had it made with material my brother had bought for me from the wholesale shirt company of which he was a salesman. We had a neighbor dressmaker design the dress and I was like a princess with a custom made dress. It cost about fifteen dollars for her labor and she was so pleased that I was delighted with her making it for me. It was my first custom made dress and thirty-six years later, I had my second custom made dress created for me. It was my first ballroom dance dress and it was made by a tailor named Joe Tinker. It cost eight hundred dollars and it must have weighed about ten pounds. It was sewed with hundreds of crystals, pearls, and sequins and it was gorgeous. I have often thought back to compare the fifteen dollar labor dress plus about ten dollars of material my brother got me from his firm called Marlboro Shirt Company, to the eight hundred dollar dress in 1978. The Marlboro Shirt Company was owned by Mr. Carroll Rosenbloom who also owned the Baltimore Colts football team. So I always thought that I wore a special dress from material bought by the Colts’ owner and I heard that he had made for himself from that material like mine, a pretty long sleeve colored shirt. In those days, men mainly wore plain white shirts and once in a while a light blue shirt. They did not wear different colors in those times. So Mr.Rosenbloom and Elita shared the same material for their clothing. Wow. Both made me feel like a princess when I was sixteen and like a young queen when I was forty-four. Both took me into different worlds when I wore them. The sixteen year old was out and about in a fancy restaurant being the hostess of this lovely luncheon and the forty-four year old who was going to participate in her first ballroom dance competition down in Miami Beach, Florida. They say “clothes make the man and woman.” They surely do and both times were events that I will never forget or would want to forget. Each one made me feel filled with accomplishment and pride. The sixteen year old kid had dear parents who wanted her to shine before her friends in this teenage time and the forty-four year old by then had been married for eighteen years and I had two children ages thirteen and seventeen. We never ever forget these special moments and they stay with us as pleasant thoughts throughout the years. If doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will; then I as a teen had no doubts that wonderful June day at Baum’s Restaurant in 1950 nor did I have any doubts that wonderful May day in 1978 at the Florida dance competition. I knew then, both times, who I was and I did not need approval to be there. Of course, Mom and Dad gave me this lovely luncheon and I surely had their approval and I still desired it and for the dance competition, I guess I wanted it by the dance judges, so I would be rewarded with a huge trophy for each dance I performed with my coach. We had practiced for hours and hours on our routines and getting out on the dance floor before judges, who I had never seen and an audience of unknown faces watching my every step (pun intended), I did need their approval to gather the winning rewards as tokens of my hard work. When we danced in a competition, the judges never spoke to us to tell us how badly we did or how well we performed, as they do now on Dancing With The Stars. If they had ever done that, no one would have or would now go into competition. The dance competitors know who they are and what they are capable of and they do not need a judge, they have never met to put them down, like it is done on DWTS. I was wise enough at this first attempt of mine for performing and then rewards, to know that even after I traveled many miles to arrive in Florida; that even if I came home empty handed, I still had fulfilled my desire to try this thing called ballroom dancing. You see on Dancing With The Stars, how as each couple is eliminated each Tuesday night, they might be big time people in their ‘star’ jobs, they get very upset if their name is called at the end of the show to say goodbye to all forever. They take it seriously and they work hard and even though they may be called out; they had no doubt and they chose dreams over fear of failure. They do not fail, they are still stars in whatever positions they occupy, but they did not let their doubt stop them from trying and if they get approval and they last on the show week after week, that is fine and if they do not, they still go on as being good sports and the main thing is that they tried. I kidded my friend Steven Behr who lives in Steilacoom, Washington State about his return trip to Hawaii where he teaches the Hawaiians to dance and he has done so for almost 35-vears, that when People magazine gets the news that an almost seventy-nine year old senior has written over 419 articles for the Baltimore Patch online newspapers in only twenty months and they know he and I are email pals both with the love of dancing, that they will want to write me and him up for one of their weekly stories. I told him to get the new suit, tie and shirt and he will have to come to Baltimore County where I live and where the reporter will interview the two of us; he said he is ready and that what a nice dream this is. He said any dreams he has about this dance interview could never beat my fantasy dream. We are never too old to have dreams and desires to excel at something interesting. We do not have to worry about failure because if we try, that is not failure, that is achievement, triumph and growth. John Keats said “failure is the highway to success” and if we try, then we cannot call it failure. The only failure would be to never try something we truly desire. Elizabeth Barrett Browning said in her most famous poem “How do I love thee, let me count the ways.” If we can count the ways we have attempted something we thought could be a possible failure, then we are a winner of the first class. Let us always count the ways we can always excel in something new. Mr. Rosenbloom and Elita had the same material for their clothing, him a shirt and me a dress made out of the same bolt of material and this sure was a nice happening. I can add that 'accomplishment' to my resume, that a millionaire businessman and owner of the Baltimore Colts and a teen liked the same clothing material and wow, this is nice even now to think about it, 66 years later. He is gone now, but I am here to remember it with fondness. elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station Patch