Monday, April 25, 2011

DRESS STANDARD

Back in the olden days, we were required to change into PE clothes for class.  Every girl in PE class wore the same thing, in the same color...the blue PE rompers.  The rompers were designed with modesty in mind.  They were one piece with short sleeves, collar, rust proof snaps up the front and a belt.  Some rompers had short like bottoms.  But the ones I remember wearing looked exactly like this....


We put these things on for every PE class.  We were also required to wear white tennis shoes with white socks.  Part of our PE grade depended on this lovely outfit being clean and our tennis shoes white.  Every Friday, we had to take our rompers, socks, towels and tennis shoes and come back with them clean on Monday. Because the rompers were made of cotton, they usually had to be ironed. To keep white tennis shoes white, I would often coat them with white, liquid, shoe polish.Getting PE clothes ready for school on Monday was always a weekend task.  If you showed up in PE on Monday wearing rompers that obviously had spent the weekend in your PE locker and dirty tennis shoes, your grade was affected.

Isn't this little outfit attractive?  Aren't you glad that you don't have to wear it today?



2 comments:

  1. Wearing those things must have been traumatic for me. They seem familiar (and I know we had a gym uniform), but I can't remember them at all. I don't remember showers either, so it must have been one big and bad blur.

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  2. My wife grew up near Atlantic City, NJ...

    She reports that the uniforms there were similar, but they had 4 different colors, one for each class.

    Her Mom bought her a larger size, in the summer after 8th grade, anticipating she'd grow into it.

    She never did.

    :)

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