EGG CANDLING

By Helen Thomae Searle

My Aunt Helen is guest posting today. I am compiling a book of stories about girls growing up in the South way back in the dark ages -- when I was a child and earlier -- and this is Aunt Helen's story about Egg Candling. I plan to include her story in the book. I hope you will find it just as charming as I do.



Helen Thomae 5 Years Old

Sometime during my high school days (1937-40), Daddy is trying to make some extra money and decided that country-fresh eggs would be a good product to sell to stores and to individuals. He had talked this idea over with several prospective customers who agreed to buy eggs from him on a trial basis. So we set up our production line in the basement of our house on a couple of card tables and on two orange crates turned on end. The basement wasn't a bad place to do this -- it was warm in the winter close to the furnace and, as for the summer, I don't think it lasted that long. I don't really remember how long we were in the egg business.

Ebb Thomae, Egg Magnate and Helen's Father (My Beloved Poppy)

It worked like this: Daddy would go to farms close to Chattanooga, buy fresh eggs from farmers, bring them home, we would candle and clean them up, then he would deliver them to his customers. I don't recall how many days would elapse from the time he acquired them until he delivered them, but probably about three or four as we had to "process" them.

The processing of these fresh eggs consisted first of cleaning them with vinegar. This was because there were all kinds of hen doody on some of them, which smelled, and it was Gene's (brother) and my job to clean them. And the more vinegar we put on them the more they smelled, and we did use a lot of rags which had to be washed quite often. That was Blanche's (sister) job -- when she came back to town every other weekend after teaching dancing in outlying towns -- it was her assignment to keep us with clean cloths -- and she also assisted in the basement assembly line from time to time.

Blanche and Gene


After the eggs were cleaned, they were then candled. It order to candle an egg, it was necessary to have a candling machine. Ours consisted of a shoe box with an oval hole cut in the top -- big enough to hold an egg. Inside the shoe box was an extension cord with a light bulb positioned underneath the hole. In order to see if the eggs were infertile (meaning that the roosters had kept their distance) I would place an egg on the hole in the top of the shoe box with the light shining beneath it, allowing me to see the outline of the inside of the egg. If it was infertile and had a clear outline of the yolk, it was ready for delivery.

But, if the egg showed signs of being fertile (meaning the rooster was a busy little fella), then that egg was placed in a different box for a different delivery.

If the yolk was milky-looking or dark in spots, it was considered unfit for consumption, put in still another box and taken upstairs to be flushed down the johnny.

Gene at Work (He Delivered Drugs -- And Apparently Repaired His Motorcycle When He Was Awake)

There were problems of one kind and another. I don't recall all the details as I was going to high school and only assisted after homework was done and on the week-end. Daddy had expected to get white eggs, but evidently the farmers had a market for them and mostly sold the brown eggs with doody on them to him. He had two or three special home customers and as he took me to school, we would deliver the eggs to their front door.

I don't know too much about the laying habits of hens, but seemingly somewhere during the year, there is a "no egg-laying" time, and, for us, that meant not too many eggs to clean and candle. But, also, the farmers wanting to keep making sales, would sell Daddy old, fertile, sometimes rotten, brown eggs. I candled them and not a one could be used! At the time, when I saw an unfit egg, I would go upstairs, break open the egg, and flush it and the horrible smell down the johnny. This happened about four times on the batch I'm telling you about before it dawned on me to get a boxful and take them up all at one time, since it seems that this particular collection of eggs had been foisted off on us.

It wasn't too much later that we went out of the egg business.

I didn't shed a tear.

Gene and Helen in 1925


An afterthought: This reminds me of a joke.

Two old maids decided to go into the chicken and egg business on their farm.

They bought 49 hens and 49 roosters!

Silvie 's Misadventure

SILVIE


Yesterday I ran down the street, in 90+ heat and high humidity. I had spotted my confused and lost 4-pound, 16-year-old poodle, Silvie, staggering along the street. Just as a car whooshed by, Silvie fell to the pavement, rolled on her back and kicked frantically into the air.

"SILVIE!" I screamed, running faster and waving my arms over my head to try to attract her attention. Silvie is practically deaf and can only recognize me if I am within ten feet or so. I'm sure that if any neighbors saw me running and screaming in such heat, they dialed 911 and reported an insane woman on the loose.


WILLOW


I was visiting Holly and Ben's house to puppy sit for a while. Their new "baby" Willow is only 8 weeks old and upset about being crated. They manage to be home a lot, with their crazy schedules, but Willow needed her Grandy to come tend to her for the afternoon.

HOLLY AND BEN

SILVIE AND MICHELLE



I had brought my poodles, Silvie and Michelle, who is 12 years old. Every time I took the dogs outside, I was vigilant, and only took them out the back, well away from the street. I feared that Willow might escape and run from me.

MAGGIE

I also kept a close eye on Maggie, their Yorkie, who sometimes visits neighboring yards. I felt pretty confident of Silvie and Michelle. Michelle is obedient and Silvie stays right at my feet. Always.


Until yesterday. Trying to keep Willow from wetting the floor and encouraging her to "go" outside, I took the dogs out, oh, about 30 times. Well, maybe not that many, but a lot. And was it hot!

On one of our trips back into the house, Silvie was missing. I looked all over the house, in case she was quietly wandering around. No Silvie.

VERY YOUNG HOLLY AND SILVIE NAPPING


"Come on, let's go outside," I called to the dogs and looked around the back yard. We went back in and looked, calling, though Silvie can't hear much. We went back outside and I carried Willow around the house twice, and walked along the wooded area, listening for little feet scrabbling in the undergrowth and leaves. No sign of Silvie.

I shut the dogs into the house and ran back outside and to the street. I ran into the street and looked both ways. Still no Silvie. Which way? A tiny dog, lost and confused, could be anywhere!

I began to run toward the highway, which was a block or so. Finally, as I rounded a curve, I saw poor little Silvie! That was when the car sped by and Silvie fell to the ground.

I screamed, Silvie!" and ran down the street toward Silvie, who struggled to her feet and stumbled toward the gutter. As I neared my little girl, a car came up behind me. I waved at it to slow down. I kept my eyes glued to Silvie until I could get to her and pick her up. The careless driver didn't slow down at all, just zoomed past me and my doggie.

SILVIE


I lifted Silvie and held her gently against my body. She rested her little head on my chest and drooped in my arms. Was she injured? Did a car hit her? I looked quickly, but there were no obvious injuries and no blood. Silvie has occasional seizures and I think that's what happened when I saw her fall.

Dazed from the heat, fear, and seizure, Silvie just slumped against me. I thanked God all the way back to the house that little Silvie was spared a horrible fate. When I got into the house, I offered water to Silvie, but she just stared ahead. I lifted a little water in my hand and wet her mouth several times, then carried her to the sofa and just sat holding Silvie to let her cool down and rest for a little while.

Then I examined her little body to find no injuries, not even scrapes. Silvie seemed a little tentative the rest of the evening and seemed afraid that bouncy, puppyish Willow would knock her down, so she just rested in my lap and lapped up the soft cooings of concern from Ben and Holly as they came home.


HOLLY AND BEN



YEN AND YANG: SILVIE AND MICHELLE

SWIMMING WITH STINGRAYS

A couple of summers ago, I visited my Aunt Helen in Jacksonville, FL. My adult daughter, Holly, and daughter-in-law, Nicole, along with her baby, Kaden, accompanied me and we had a great vacation eating seafood, exploring St. Augustine, and going to the beach. Until the stingray invasion.

Holly, Nicole, and I waded out into the cool, refreshing ocean. Kaden sported a fancy inner tube. We went about waist deep, backing into the waves and laughing as the spray flew around us. Kaden enjoyed the ride in his tube. The sun was shining; the afternoon was just perfect.

"Oh, look," Holly said, pointing to a little stingray.


"Hm," I replied looking into the water. Interesting. We peered at the stingray for a moment as we moved to the side, avoiding being anywhere near it.

Before our next breath, we were surrounded by stingrays! Coming from behind, a huge flotilla bore down on us, surrounding us and cutting off our escape route to the beach. We looked around us and saw - truly - thousands of the things, a huge . . .school? . . . flock?. . . flapping from deep water to the shallow surf, flowing from our left to our right and on and on until they were out of sight!

Holly and Nicole began screaming! "EEEEEEEEEE!"

"Don't scare the baby," I yelled. "Don't scream, you're scaring the baby!"

I pulled Kaden and his tube out of the water, afraid that he might get stung.


I admit that Steve Irwin's stingray-induced death popped into my mind. "Horror!"

"No, no," I said to myself. "That was a fluke and a huge stingray. Nothing to be afraid of."

"Steve Irwin!"

"No, really, I don't need to be afraid."

"Poor Steve Irwin!" my mind debated like opposing politicians, fright and common sense fighting for my emotions.

"EEEEEEEEE!" the girls continued to scream. Both Nicole and Holly began climbing my back! "EEEEEEEEE!"

Now I'm staggering along dragging Kaden and mostly carrying Holly and Nicole, still yelling, "Don't scream. You're scaring the baby!"

We floundered toward shore, screaming bloody murder, Kaden having joined the chorus. The stingrays bumped into Holly's and Nicole's legs, accompanied by ever shriller screeches. One caught on Holly's calf, wrapped its "wings" around her leg, then wiggled itself free and swam away. "EEEEEEE!" Holly shrieked, wrapping her arms around my neck.

"You're choking me!" I squeaked. Holly released my throat and began pushing me forward.

"Shuffle your feet," Holly called, "shuffle your feet!"

"Shut up, Holly!" Nicole retorted between screams while still trying to climb my back. "Just shut up!"

At that, I began laughing, stumbling, gasping, tottering with two girls on my back and a baby in my arms, the laughter sucking the last strength from my legs.


By the time we tumbled onto the beach and sprawled on the sand, we were all shrieking with laughter and relief, except for Kaden, who howled with terror. Wiping the stinging salt water from my eyes, I looked around at the other vacationers. Not one person had noticed our distress or the stingray armada currently cruising beyond our sight.

We didn't go back onto the water that day.

RUN WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED!

A few years ago, I was running along the highway in the hot summer with my mouth open and my tongue dragging along the street behind me when a bumble bee flew into my mouth!

Not missing a step, I puckered up and blew the bee out, desperately trying to keep my tongue and lips away from its stinger.

"Fwoof." Out it came without hurting me at all. But I realized that I had lightly touched it with my tongue, because the yellow and black "visitor" felt fuzzy and tasted sweet.

INJURED LOON VISITS COCHRAN MILL NATURE CENTER

We had an interesting visitor at the center this week. A loon, apparently on its way north. Here is what Rick, who cares for all of the center's animals, had to say:

The loon was brought in from the Atlanta airport by the Aviation Authority. It had landed on a runway. Apparently this happens sometimes where the loon mistakes the runway for water. They can only take off from water and need about a football field's length to run across as they take off.

It had some abrasions to its feet and wings, so we put some topical antibiotics on.

Two rehabbers on the coast gave me some very important information regarding this species. Because their legs are so far back on their bodies, they have to lie in a donut-shaped towel if they're in a carrier or they will quickly get sores on their keel as they can't hold it up. Also, they will lose the waterproofing of their feathers if they don't have constant clean, refreshed water, so the kiddie pool was not a good solution long term.

It didn't eat any of the fish I tried (as far as I can tell). I took it to a private lake today and released it and it appeared very happy to be free.

I was totally taken aback at how aggressive (defensively) it was! It would go out of its way to come after you if you pressed its space. Worse bird I've dealt with in that respect. Worse than any raptors! Whod've thunk it??

What a beautiful haunting cry they have. They are also very beautifully colored and marked when in their breeding plumage.The injured loon was either young or not in its breeding plumage.

There are many loon fans who go to the northern states in order to see/hear them in the wild. I have a friend who lies in the Adirondacks in loon country and he was talking to some loon revelers once and he told them, "I shoot them and eat them!" They were horrified and one asked, "What do they taste like?" He replied casually, "They taste like Bald Eagles!"

I'm glad to know that Rick released the loon. Its sad call, repeated often, seemed to be searching for its flock or at least another of its kind. I hope that it has joined other loons and is winging its way north.


LOONY FACTS:

Starting with the name: The bird's name MIGHT have come from its eerie yodel, especially when heard on moonlit nights. Some of its calls resemble crazy laughter, hence "loon" as we think of strange persons. And the word "lunatic" originally referred to a person who became deranged by sleeping in moonlight (luna = moon). Maybe families huddled in their safe, tightly closed cottages heard weird cries in the night and imagined lost souls wandering around a lake howling and laughing.

Common Loons dive and fish underwater, catching their prey and swallowing it, aided by backward-facing sharp knobs in their mouths that prevent escape of the intended dinner. They can stay under water for almost five minutes while fishing.

The Common Loon is Minnesota's state bird.

You might hear one of four calls from the loon: the tremolo, like maniacal laughter, is an aggressive one; the wail, a lonely-sounding long call; the hoot, used to communicate among parents and offspring; and the yodel, made by males defining their territory.

In the summer, loons are speckled black and white with a blackish, iridescent-green head. Their bills are black and their eyes are red. The red eye helps the loon see underwater. Winter colors are gray and white, like the loon which visited CMNC.

Both parents sit on the nest and care for their one or two babies. The young can leave the nest after just a day, but can't fly for two months. The parents often carry their offspring on their back to protect them from predatory fish and turtles in the water.

Their menu includes fish, frogs, leeches, crayfish, mollusks, salamanders and insects.

Young loons are on the menu of skunks, raccoons, foxes, snapping turtles, northern pike and muskies. Only the bald eagle is likely to eat the adults.

Loons have solid bones, unlike most birds whose bones are hollow. The extra weight helps them dive for food but, because their bodies are heavy relative to wing size, they need a 100 - 600-foot "runway" to take off from a lake. Once up, they can fly faster than 75 miles per hour.

Loons may live for more than 30 years.

MAGGIE SMILES

This week, Maggie turns 6 years old. Magdalena Harbin-Simpson, as she is called when she is in trouble, is a Yorkshire terrorist, I mean terrier. She's about 6 inches tall, black and gold and beautiful.



Maggie really belongs to my daughter, Holly.
But Holly married Ben in November, so we share custody of Maggie. Holly wants Maggie to continue to enjoy being with Grandy and Pawpaw and our toy poodles, Silvie and Michelle, Queen of the World.


GIZMO (DECEASED), SILVIE, MAGGIE, AND MICHELLE



I know that almost everyone loves his or her dog. Every dog has its own personality and charm. We love our poodles as much as we love Maggie, but Maggie came to our family at a very hard time and has been a real comfort and source of happiness for her Pawpaw as he suffered through the failure of his businesses and the financial hardship that followed.





Any doggie can lift depression if its owner appreciates it But our Maggie is such a strange little girl and so friendly, loving, and funny that she helped my husband (and the rest of us) get through a "rough patch" as her fellow countrymen would say with typical British understatement.





Because Maggie smiles. And those merry smiles amuse us and distract us from our troubles. They are not just the smiling eyes and lowered ears that most dogs do to express happiness and friendliness. She actually lifts her lips and pulls them back in a real toothy smile. She's not the only dog I know of who smiles. We fostered a lab who smiled in the same way, wrinkling her nose quite delightfully. Several friends have told me that their dogs smile, too. It's a greeting, along with submission. Maggie adds sneezing and snorting to her submissive smiles.

Maggie greets EVERYONE she meets. Everyone. In the neighborhood, on a walk, in the park, any dog, person, or cat gets greeted with sneezes, snorts, smiles and her patented, tummy flaunting rollover. It's obvious when Maggie sees someone to greet. Her perky ears flatten, rise up, and flatten again, as she darts in their direction, smiling, sneezing, and snorting "Are you my friends? Can we be friends? I like you, do you like me? Let's be friends! Look! Here's my tummy! Rub my tummy! Do you love me?!!!"

It can be quite overwhelming. Most people just laugh and pet the little long-haired dust moppet. But sometimes small children and dogs are taken aback and retreat behind someone's legs to peer at this noisy whirlygig. Undeterred, Maggie gets up and approaches more slowly, rear-end first, just in case. A bite on the little hiney is not as painful as a bite on the little nosey, Maggie has learned (from Michelle, Queen of the World).


Of course, nobody can be so good all the time, even Maggie. She has a fear-hate relationship with our cat, Hobbs. Hobbs is a huge tom cat. He routinely stalks and attacks Maggie and Silvie, the smaller poodle. Michelle, Queen of the World, is VERY serious about her dignity and stature and has taught Hobbs to leave her totally alone. But Maggie is ambivalent - sometimes being scared of Hobbs and sometimes stalking him and chasing him through the house. IF he will run from her.



Sometimes Maggie skulks around and suddenly attacks Hobbs -- and he just stands there glaring "I don't THINK so!" Then Maggie veers away and finds a great need to smell the leg of a chair to cover her embarrassment. She hadn't meant to chase the cat, anyway; he was just in her path as she went to smell the compelling odor on the chair.



Maggie has other oddities, too. When she was a little puppy we lived in a two-storey home. The stairs were taller than Maggie. She learned pretty quickly to climb up the stairs, but going back down scared her. At first, she would stand at the top of the steps and cry until someone came to rescue her. Later, she took matters into her own hands - er paws. First she would stand at the top of the stairs growling menacingly to intimidate the staircase. Then Maggie would "sled" down the carpeted stairs on her tummy with her front legs in front of her and her hind legs stuck out behind, growling all the way. Apparently the steps were sufficiently bullied, as Maggie always arrived safely at the bottom.


Another unusual trait of Maggie's: From puppyhood she has naturally sat up on her haunches. We taught our poodles to "beg" in this position, but Maggie routinely pulls herself up in what we call "prairie dog" position, stands all the way up, and lowers herself back to "prairie dog" without ever touching down with her front feet. Maybe Yorkies have exceptional balance or maybe it's just Maggie.



I believe that Maggie sometimes pictures herself as a much bigger dog. When she hears her "sisters" barking outside, she trots officiously through the house on her stubby little legs, with her "nubbie" (her cropped tail) sticking straight up through her back hair, creating a "rooster tail," barking her Rottweiler bark "Roo-quough," giving every indication that she is on the way to take care of whatever needs to be straightened out. Of course, if there is a person or dog out there, she begins her smiley, snorty, sneezey routine and rolls over to display her belly.



Soon Maggie will come to stay with her Pawpaw for a few days and cheer up the whole household with her antics. We are looking forward to seeing her -- and the cat is just ecstatic.

THE CUP COMPLEX

The following is a "girls only" post; we'll have something for you later, guys!



Breasts, boobs, boobies, knockers, ta-tas, bosom, bozooms, ninnies, lungs, chest, jugs, bazoombas, etc., etc., etc.

As Yul Brenner said in the musical play “The King and I,” “Is a puzzlement.” Why do we have so many names for this portion of female anatomy? Do men prefer large breasts? Why do we use of these same terms when speaking of idiots? Is it societal pressure that causes sensible women to “enhance” their attributes? And, most importantly, what don’t I have big ones?

Okay, why do we have so many pseudonyms for these protuberances? Dr. Jackie Boles, Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta said, “Generally anthropologists have found that a culture has a lot of words for things that are important and few for those that aren’t.” If this is true, these outstanding female appendages must be intensely important to our culture.



GENTLEMEN PREFER BOOBS

Now, I’m not saying all men idolize enormous breasts. Obviously not – or many of us would have remained unmarried and virginal. And it’s not just a matter of some poor guys “making do” when all the C and D cup women are taken. My own husband said, upon intense questioning, “Oversized breasts are no more sexually appealing to me than oversized earlobes.” Is he sincere? Of course. Do I believe him? Of course. He married me, didn’t he? Isn’t that uplifting for those of us with a paucity in our statistics?

Still, I observe that “built” women command attention. Be it bikini-clad beauties on the beach or stylish ladies swathed in silk, let a D-cup appear and all male eyes go “boing!” These eyes are, as my father used to say, “run out on stems.”

“The female body,” Dr. Boling explained, “is shaped to act as a stimulant to men, both coming and going. That is, large breasts and rear ends attract men.”

I have personal experience in this realm. While nursing my daughter, my cup runneth over. Many people, from my father-in-law to my nieces, complimented me. My step-sons (both breast men) teased me, “You’re going to make that poor baby nurse until she goes away to college, just so you can have a big chest, aren’t you?”

Suddenly I was a star. My public consisted totally of men. Doing ordinary errands became an adventure, not unlike wading through a muddy pen of affectionate hound dogs while dressed in white slacks. One day I drove to the drug store, got out of my car, and hoisted my heavy, sweet-smelling infant to my hip.

“WHOA!” Someone yelled. I jumped and nearly dropped my baby. “WHO-EEE! Look at that pair!” A pickup truck cruised slowly by, the two men inside grinning, shouting, and whistling as I trudged, red-faced and perspiring with embarrassment, across the parking lot. “Have you no respect for motherhood?” I muttered angrily to myself, shifting the baby around and carrying her tightly against my chest.

Then there was the time in the elevator. I went to the hospital for a checkup and X-ray. I completed my checkup on one floor and was going upstairs, in my hospital gown and jeans, for my X-ray. Several people rode the elevator with me. One was a wormy little guy who slouched, needed a shave, and smelled like last week’s garbage. Well, he clapped those bleary eyes on my unfettered, milk-swollen mammary glands, and remained mesmerized, transfixed, and totally unmoving throughout the ride. Arriving at my floor, I sailed past him, preceded by my magnificent prow, and only his neck moved to keep his eyes plastered my mighty melons.

Of course, there was occasional flirtatious eyeballing from attractive men and I basked in the realization of my childhood dream. All of this admiration, both the welcome and the unwelcome, ceased abruptly after weaning. But, for a year, I possessed the build I had looked forward to so expectantly when I was a child.

CUP COMPLEX, OR, MUST I WEAR A TRAINING BRA FOREVER?

When I was a child, during the 1950’s, buxom women were the ideal. Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren are just a few stars whose titanic “headlights” highlighted the silver screen. Boys dreamed of marrying full-figured Lovable (bra) girls when they grew up. Girls dreamed of achieving glamorous dimensions one day. I did.



Thumbing through a Sears catalog, I noticed how pretty the models looked. In plaid shirts. In frilly blouses. In evening gowns and swim suits. I yearned for the day when I, not “June” would “be bustin’ out all over.” I dreamed and waited. And waited. If only I had looked at my mother and all her sisters, I would have surely suspected the dreadful truth. Put all five of them together and you couldn’t come up with a decent pair of breasts. And I mean if you put them all together. Cross my heart (“with a Playtex Living Bra”). If women had worn Living Bras back then, theirs would have starved.

When I was nine years old, my mother fed my dreams by casually saying, “Drinking lots of cream makes you have big breasts.” One day as I ate breakfast at our chrome-and yellow Formica table, she asked, “Why did you flood your oatmeal with cream?”

“I always put lots of cream on my oatmeal,” I replied, skimming the slightly congealed top off with my spoon.

“But why do you use so much?” she persisted.

“I want to have big breasts,” I answered nonchalantly.

“You mean,” she sputtered, “that you put all that cream on your oatmeal because you think it will make you have big breasts?”

I felt the sweet hot cereal turn to ashes in my mouth. “That’s what you said!”

“Oh, ha, ha!” she shouted. She held her middle with both arms. “Ha, ha, ha!” She staggered to a yellow plastic-covered kitchen chair and collapsed into it. “I was just kidding, you nut! Ha, ha, ha!”

Well, I was devastated. As Mama laughed herself silly, I thought of the pounds of oatmeal, the gallons of cream, all for nothing.

Beneath my lashes I directed a venomous glance my mother’s way. She’s also the one who told me the hole in a doughnut is poisonous, causing me to leave a safety ring of doughnut around all those “poison” holes for years. But that’s another story.

To add to my mortification, as I grew up skinny and flat-chested, my next-door neighbor and best friend wore a 36D by the time she was 13 years old! I ask you, is that fair? I never will forget the day she started “growing”. I was eight and she was nine. As we walked home from church, she complained, “My nipples burn.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, squinting at her. The sun beat hot on my head that summer noon, blinding me with it’s glare.

“They’re growing,” she answered. “That’s what happens when you start to develop,” she answered smugly, flicking her eyes over my concave front.

I was eaten up with envy.

“But it burns. I want to go home,” she said fretfully. Before long, she was running. I followed her breathlessly into her home, where she rummaged in the pantry. Grabbing a large can of Crisco, she scooped up some and, jerking up her blouse, rubbed it tenderly on her chest. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “That’s so cool!”

“What in the world are you doing?” I squealed. “Why don’t you use Noxema?”

“Because this feels good!” she snapped.

“That’s foolish,” I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

Maybe it was foolish to use Crisco – still she ended up a 36D and I . . . . well, I didn’t.

IS THAT A CUT?

Speaking of foolish, booby and ninny both mean a foolish person, according to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. I wondered whether women’s primary recognizable physical trait is called by these terms for unflattering reasons. I mean, is this a put-down?

“I suspect so,” said Dr. Boles. “Check the derivation of the words.”

So I did. “Ninny” could be derived from the Spanish “nino,” meaning child. “Booby” is guessed to come from “bubby, perhaps an imitation of the noise made by a sucking infant.” I checked several dictionaries. These were the best explanations I could find. They seem to give ninny and booby a legitimate, non-denigrating derivation, separate from the “foolish” meaning. But I wonder.

GUILDING THE LILY

Maybe the “foolish” labels fit, though. What haven’t we done to enhance our bustlines? Falsies (store-bought and imaginatively home-made), padded bras, underwires. Now it seems surgery is commonplace in our quest for bounteous beauty. Ah, the stories I could tell . . . . Okay, if you insist.

In the early 1960s, padded bras were stiff enough to put a crease in your blouse. At 14, I wore an A-cup padded bra with little to put into it. One autumn night I attended a dance. My boyfriend and I danced very closely to dreamy romantic music. The first song ended and we smiled as we stepped away from each other.



My smile died when I glanced down and, to my horror, the dim light revealed, instead of two points against my white cotton blouse, I had two circles! With nothing to fill the cups, they had dented inward, resembling volcanic craters.

Whipping around so my back was to my friends, I frantically pressed my arms against the bra. “Tock, Tock,” the padding popped out, cone-shaped again. I spent the evening “tock-tocking” my bra, desperately hoping no one, especially my boyfriend, noticed my affliction.

Three years later when I visited relatives in Florida, we went to the beach. I had carefully sewn my soft pink foam falsies into my bathing suit, having learned my lesson a year earlier when one escaped and floated to shore. The sun played hide-and-seek behind the racing clouds and the wind blew relentlessly.

Swimming in terribly rough seas with my male cousin and his friend, I eyed the stripes all over their torsos where jellyfish had stung them the day before. Nervous, I closely scrutinized the water about me constantly for the tell-tale pastel blobs carrying the noxious tentacles. The much bigger boys dragged their rafts out past the breakers and enjoyed thrilling rides to the beach on that stormy day. But I just couldn’t fight my way past the breakers. The boys even tried putting me on my raft and pulling me out, but the surf was too strong.

So, while they were far out, bobbing on the swells and awaiting their next ride, I paddled around by myself in waist-deep water. A huge wave knocked me over and rolled me along the sandy bottom, while the surf roared in my ears. I burst from the water like a blowing whale, coughing and blinking the burning salt water from my eyes.

There, between my upper arm and my breast floated a pastel blob! Too terrified to touch it, I screamed and splashed at the creature hysterically. Expecting the stinging tentacles to assault my legs at any moment, I whirled, crying and splashing, trying frantically to get away from that terrifying thing which stayed despite everything. Hysteria abated shortly and I realized it was not stinging me. After my tears had diluted the sea water in my eyes, I stood still, panting, and looked carefully at the blob . . . .

Yes, it was my falsie, tenaciously clinging where I had sewn it, but plopped out by my wrangle with the undertow. Mortified, I looked around hastily, plunged under the water, and deftly stuffed my stuffing back into place. No, neither my cousin nor his friend witnessed or I wouldn’t be alive now. Do you doubt embarrassment can be fatal? To a teen?

Later in my life, my husband told me of seeing a lovely girl stroll down to the water at a beach. As she waded into the surf, nylon stocking began floating from her bikini top. “What did she do?” I gasped, cringing empathetically.

“She stuffed it all back in and came out of the water,” he replied matter of factly.

I guess men just don’t understand. To be deficient is bad enough. To be caught bluffing is unendurable. Still, a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do.



THEY’RE OUT!

Then came Twiggy – a pretty, big-eyed face attached to a skeleton barely covered with skin. Even more flat-chested than I. And proud of it! Women burned their bras, and we moved into a very comfortable period. Sure, sure, politically there was world-wide upheaveal, wars, death, and destruction, etc. Who cared? We were braless! No sliding straps. No tight bands around our bodies. No digging, strangling foundations garments. With small, firm breasts, I was in style. I was happy with myself – adequate at last.

THEY’RE IN AGAIN

So finally women were “politically aware” and physically free. We learned to accept and respect ourselves for who and what we are.

But are we allowed to age and die happy? NO-O-O! Busts are back. Everywhere you look, mountainous cleavage, billowy breasts bulging from décolletage. An ad in a department store reads, “Increases your bust by a whole cup size!” Do you know what they are selling? Little satin-covered half-pads to put under your breast. A rolled up sock would work just as well! A friend complained, “You can hardly buy a bra without underwires or padding anymore.” Yes, even the plain bra, uncomfortable though it may be, has given way to torturous devices. Wires to squeeze and poke you, padding to swelter you in summer.


What next? Where did this all start? Perusal of the fashion pages blames it all on the rock star Madonna. Madonna of the outside underwear. The pointed breastwear that reminds one of the opera soprano wearing braids and armored breastplate. We’re back to the beginning, with the pinching, cutting, slipping “cheaters” that promise to make us feel adequate. Well, all I can say is, “Thanks a whole heap, Madonna!”