REMEMBERING DAYS OF GRADUATION AND ROSES

In the spring of 1927 there was, for me, eighth-grade graduation! Right after Christmas of 1926 the girls in my class began to talk of the dresses they would wear for the graduation ceremony, such dresses being made at home, of course, although times were getting better and better for everyone.

We discussed crepe de chine, georgette, voil and dimity. No two dresses were alike, but all would be white. Thelma Ross said, to our amazement and envy, that her dress was going to be trimmed with bugle beads. I'd never heard of bugle beads but Thelma's description of them left glittering visions in our mind's eyes.

When I relayed this information to Mama, she said there would be no bugle beads on my dress. But she did begin to finger the silks when we went to the fabric stores or dry goods stores as they were called then.

Eventually we decided on white crepe de chine, a sort of non-shiny, crepy silk. The yardage was brought home months in advance of the ceremony so I could have the joy of anticipation.

The final pattern we chose, from a picture in the catalog, naturally, had two box pleats from shoulder to hem, both front and back. They were sewn like big tucks and then flattened out equally over the seams and pressed. No loose flaring with these pleats. They were sewn in place. A Little Orphan Annie collar, short sleeves and tie belt of self fabric to pull in a waist line (Ah me, a waist line) formed the utter simplicity of it, contrasting sharply with the bugle beaded trim of Thelma's.

No one saw my nainsook bloomers with lace insertions about two inches above the elastic casing nor the lace-trimmed slip. I was clothed more fancy underneath than on the outside. Maybe this was Mama's subtle way of saying that dressings, either in clothes or in personality, shouldn't be just a facade for what's underneath.

We had a rose bush with early blossoms, pink and very fragrant. I made corsages of these for all my girl classmates. There were only six!

We marched down the stairs of the new gym, boys in one row, girls in the other, perfuming the air around us with this inimitable old-fashioned rose fragrance.

The high school graduating class shared the same ceremony. The older graduates were seated across an aisle from us "upstarts."

I'm sure the speaker tried to make his message suit both classes, not over our eighth-grade heads but not dumbed down to the older graduates. I don't remember any part of it, being much more interested in Thelma's bugle beads, my own crepe de chine and the heady fragrance of the old roses.

Maybe the speaker talked about opportunities and what a wonderful world it was for us "out there." "Out there" didn't interest me much. The here and now was pretty wonderful for me. There were Mama and Daddy, sisters Lucille and Lillian, Grandma and Grandpa, the dogs, cats, chickens, cows, horses, bluebells, wild pansies, the woods, the river, the land, and a silk dress.

Maybe the speaker talked about a Pact that was popular then, the Kellogg-Brand Pact that nations were signing, promising they would use peaceful means instead of war to settle quarrels among themselves.

That wouldn't have interested me much either. We had already fought the war to end all wars.

Maybe the speaker quoted President Coolidge's advice, "Spend less than you make and make more than you spend." Since it would be several years before I would start making money, that wouldn't have impressed me either. Even if he's added, "But people are spending more than they make," I'd probably have just readjusted my mock box pleats and smelled the roses.

"Let the good times roll," was the attitude of most everyone. Yes, sir, let them roll. And they did for two more years. Even longer than that for us for we had no money in the stock market which crashed a couple of years later, bringing the Depression years into focus.

If a meadow full of daisies, a nest of robin's eggs, chimney swifts diving down the chimneys had interested me more than any national or international events I could have read about in the Farmington News, something happened in that arena not long after eighth-grade graduation that caught my attention. Not only mine but everyone else's. Charles Augustus Lindberg had flown an airplane by himself across the Atlantic Ocean! An airplane, like the ones we used to go outside when he heard it and shout "Airplane!" to alert everyone to the sight!

As I watched the astronauts capture a satellite while both were traveling 17,000 miles per hour more than two miles above the earth, I marvel at how far we've come in this area. I also think of World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm and marvel, deploringly, of how far we've plummeted from the Kellogg-Brand Act and its successors.

I've kept alive and nourished the same old fragrant rose, even had a fancy latticed archway for it to lean on. If ever anyone graduates summa cum laude from both fields of Peace and Progress, I'll make him/her a corsage, No, I'll give the whole rose bush, complete with archway and the land it is built on. Pitiful gift for such an accomplishment.

REJOICE!