Twelve Pairs of Nylon Hose

In about 1948, Dad surprised her with a wonderful Valentine gift. He bought her 12 pairs of nylon hosiery. Big deal you say? Yes it was more than a huge big deal. You see, a man named Wallace Carothers in 1935, a year after I was born invented nylon. He died a few years later because he was depressed after his sister's sudden death. A big manufacturing firm took over his invention and it was used during the war for parachutes and other war needed necessities. When it finally hit the public, this is when Dad decided to buy her this beautiful gift costing a whopping cost of 12 dollars for 12 pairs. Mom was so excited, she laid each pair out in her bedroom dresser in a row and she looked at them every night thinking "wow I am rich." I was a kid then not into wearing nylon hosiery. We wore then as pre teens what was called bobby sox. They were cotton sox that you folded over like a cuff on the sox.They came in all colors to match your dress or skirt and blouse or sweater. There were no sneakers then, if you needed them for gym class, you found them in a dollar store which then was called a five and ten store. This because most items were in the range of five cents, ten cents and maybe a dollar. They were all white and were high-ups because they had a high up top to them and were quite ugly. You dare not wear them to any place other than the gym class. I did not have gym to I got to junior high school (now called middle school.) The reason because I went to an accelerated junior high which was for the 'select and smart' kids all over the city. Six were chosen from each school to go there and it was called Robert E.Lee junior high # 49. I had my first gym class there in 7th grade and we had to walk 6 blocks to another school which had the gym. It was not pleasant walking 6 blocks for this obnoxious class and the girls especially disliked it The had no showers to clean up after the class when you needed a shower. So Mom was excited about the nylon hose which were sheer and 2 colors, nude color and medium brown. They surely made a woman feel sexy and beautiful. None of her neighbors or friends had any and several came over to oohh and ahh when she showed them all laid out in the drawer. To say they were not a bit envious would be an untruth. She smiled and grinned and one day, she put on a pair and she just beamed. She washed them by hand and hung them over a towel which was in a hanging rack to dry delicate laundry. Those were the days of simple things which could make you happy and feel secure and this was nice after going through the war and all the sadness happening. Mom lost a first cousin, a pilot, in the war and we also lost a young neighbor Irving, a turret gunner too and they never found his remains. So we all needed, me too as a child of 10 or so seemed to dwell on these plain activities like going to the movies, to the library, to the delly to eat and we listened to our radios with our ears glued to the brown box. Yes, there were radio soap operas on too and Mom and I listened to two of them while she cooked supper and Dad not home yet. One was called Portia Faces Life and the other was Lorenzo Jones and his wife Belle. You had to imagine what was going on and where from the voices and this was good for your imagination and thoughts in your brain. Nylons, radios, soap operas called soap serials, eating at a delly and going to the movies on the weekend costing about a quarter for a kid under 12. My brother was tall for his age and when the cashier questioned his age, he was 13, he said he had a medical problem which made him tall for 12. Oh my, your poor fellow, go in for the lower price, Wallace Carothers did not live to reap the money he would have earned and this is sad because the whole fashion industry was changed for his nylon discovery. Blouses and skirts were made of nylon too. Bravo to the nice things we have now so many years later. This all grew just as a blade of grass grows and this is the container of our lives, new inventions, man on the moon, nylons, television, ipods, tablets, wifi, cable television and a modern life of hopefully good health due to new medicines, elita sohmer clayman