The following letter was sent to Tom Fakehany. I enjoy reading your e-mails to the editor to The Malibu Times. Your recent true-life story of Michael O’Brien and the Lemonade Stand Turf War was pleasant reading. You may get a giggle from a true-story of my life. In 1953 I attended Easter Mass with my Aunt who had helped me pick out my Easter outfit at Bullocks-Wilshire in Los Angeles. We bought a yellow linen suit, great hat with a huge yellow floral arrangement and all the matching attire. I thought I was really something in this new outfit. The suit had a straight skirt and a boxer type jacket and was flattering to a chunky figure.In March of 1954 my friend Bonnie invited me to attend Easter services with her family at the local Catholic Church. Her brother who was a Marine was coming home with his buddy, Paul. I had a huge crush on Paul.
I rooted in my closet to find the suit and discovered that my mother had washed and shrunk the skirt. There weren’t funds to be purchasing a new outfit. My grandmother was visiting on this particular day and volunteered her Playtex girdle as a solution to the shrunken skirt problem. The following week she comes over with the promised girdle and a small can of baby powder. The Playtex girdles were like very large rubber bands with small holes about every half-inch for ventilation or whatever. Grandmother’s instructions were to apply lots of powder and tug on the girdle. My friend Bonnie was at the house and we decided to do a dress rehearsal. Bonnie administered the powder and I managed to tug the girdle that was many sizes too small onto my bare bottom. It took the entire can of baby powder to get it on and without a slip we got me into that skirt. The skirt had a half lining sewn in the back with a center seam and the linen in the skirt also had a center seam.
Bonnie and I agreed that I could get away with this outfit and she would come over early on Easter morning to help get me back into the girdle. Easter morning we proceeded with our plans and got me dressed, using another can of baby powder and off to church we went. Her family was seated in about the third row from the front of the very large Catholic Church. We, younger folks, were seated together, in the second row from the front, and Paul would follow me when leaving the pew. When it came time for Communion those that were going to partake rose and moved to exit the pew, as each entered the isle they genuflected before moving toward the front of the church to receive Communion. I exited the pew, genuflected and the skirt BLEW with huge puff of baby powder and there I was bare bottomed, with much powder in the crack and in full view of the entire congregation that began to giggle. Paul removed his jacket and shielded my backside and said “make it to the car.” In retrospect I think I originated the K Mart waddle during that walk, in high heels that I had not mastered. The busted girdle and nylons crept to my ankles way before I got to the back of the church. With each step there were more puffs of powder emitting and I was to the point of stumbling midway out. It somehow didn’t matter that Paul was shielding my bare backside I was fourteen years old, mortified by the sound of folks trying to muffle their laughter and hysterical midway down that isle. I only remember him saying “you’ve got to step out of all that paraphernalia in order get down the steps and make it to the car.” I wouldn’t go out of the house for days.
Carole Brazda, Dallas, Tx.