6801

6801 29th Street North, Arlington, Virginia

This is the red brick house where I lived a good portion of my youth.  My parents moved into the house in 1950. We lived here until the summer of 1962 when my parents bought a bigger, better, more up to date home.

Looking at this picture, I can visualize just about every room as it was back then.  The front door opened directly into the living room. The large window on the left is the living room.  I'm pretty sure that the living room and dining room were painted a pale green. There may have originally been hardwood floors, but I only remember wall to wall carpeting.  Women of the 1950s were delighted to cover up hardwood floors with wall to wall carpeting.  Hardwood floors were a pain to keep up because they had to be waxed on a regular basis. There were venetian blinds and drapes to the windows.

The living room and dining room were connected in an "L" shape.  We ate all of our family meals in the dining room.  There was usually a tablecloth on the table that was big enough to seat 8 people.  I think the seating arrangement was girls on one side, boys on the other, Mother on the end closest to the kitchen and my Dad at the opposite end.

If you walked straight ahead from the front door, you crossed the living room and could either go directly into the kitchen or turn left and go down a short hall to the bedrooms and bathroom.  The smallest bedroom was the first room on the left.  I seem to remember that it was painted a light lavender.  As kids started to move out or to the basement, the lavender bedroom became my Mother's sewing room. The short bedroom hall opened up in a larger area.  The master bedroom was straight ahead, another bedroom was next to the master bedroom on the right. The only bathroom on the main floor was also off that hall.

Even though I occupied the bedroom on the right of the master, I don't remember what color it was....perhaps a pale pink?  But I certainly remember the bathroom.  It had the basics - sink, toilet and tub.  And really wasn't very big.  The bathroom was tiled in a salmon color tile with maroon accents.  The tile went halfway up the wall.  The tile on the floor was small tiles in salmon and maroon. Very typical of a 1950s bathroom.

The picture above was taken in the early spring of 1983.  My father in law and husband had meetings in Washington DC.  My mother in law and I went along.  I hadn't been back in Northern Virginia since 1969.  We had a rented car and I drove my mother in law all around Arlington and Falls Church to show her where I grew up.

Except for the landscaping, the house looks much like it did back in the fifties.  Some of the houses in the neighborhood had gable ends that were painted different colors.  Ours was always white along with the front door.  However, I think that the window trim was black.

I'm glad that I have this picture because the red brick house is no longer there.  Through a curiosity search on Google maps, I discovered that there was a big, brick two story home at the address of 6801 29th Street North.  The new house looks a little out of place because it is surrounded by the original, smaller ramblers.

It's kind of sad to learn that your childhood home is no more.  But I still have all the memories.  And, I still have a fondness for red brick houses.

BETTER SHE DOESN'T KNOW

While my mother didn't have a problem with me going on dates and riding in cars with a 15 year old driver before I was 16, she had a problem with me wearing make up and doing some other girlie things before I was 16.  I probably started wearing lipstick, occasionally, in the ninth grade.  But that was it.  At some point, I got a hold of some mascara (Linda, could it have been from you?) and started using that as well.  I never said anything to my mother about it.

One day, while riding with her in the car, I started applying mascara.  My mother wasn't too happy about it. I don't remember exactly what she said.  But it was probably something like "You're too young to be wearing that.".  However, she failed to tell me when I would be old enough to start wearing mascara.  It isn't that my mother didn't wear makeup.  She always did - rouge, face powder, lipstick, mascara - the works.  In fact, she never left the house without "her face on".  It could be that she didn't like the idea that her youngest daughter was growing up.

Then there was the time that my sister, Linda, took me aside and told me that it was probably time for me to start shaving my legs.  In a somewhat clandestine meeting in the basement bathroom, she introduced me to the science of leg shaving.  Using her Gillette razor, I soaped up my legs and went to work.  We probably shared a razor for quite a while because of Linda's advice to me..."Don't tell mother that you are shaving your legs.".
It was another one of those things that I knew my mother did, but for some reason it wasn't OK for me.

PROMISED VALLEY

In the summer of 1961, the Washington DC LDS Stake under took the production of the musical "Promised Valley".  The musical was originally written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the settling of the Salt Lake Valley.

Our production was complete with orchestra, dancers, chorus and actors..children to adults.  I  was a member of the chorus.  We had hours of rehearsals learning the music.  Then there were additional hours spent putting all the elements of the show together.  I had never been involved in a production the size that this one was and it was pretty exciting. We performed "Promised Valley" for two nights and offered the show to the public for free.  I'm pretty sure that the high school auditorium was packed both nights. 

Besides having a copy of the program of the show, I have a special memento. During either a dress rehearsal or an actual show, I tripped over a piece of scenery back stage.  A nail protruding from the scenery base cut my foot.  There was a lot of blood.  I still have the scar on the top of my right foot.

KEEPING THE YOUTH OUT OF TROUBLE

Youth of the LDS church participate in many organized group activities.  Back in the olden days, there a several activities that I remember fairly well.  Unlike today when you have to be 14 or older to participate in most coed activities, anyone over the age of 12 could go.  The only thing that was age restricted was girls camp.  You had to be a MIA Maid to go to camp.  Go figure.

I remember a stake swimming party that was held at the Congressional Country Club.  Someone in the stake must have had connections to be able to reserve the entire facility for an evening so that a bunch of LDS kids could swim and party.

I also remember an activity where all of the youth stayed overnight at the ward.  I'm not sure if it was a ward or stake activity.  But I certainly remember sleeping on the floor in the gym....guys and girls were in the same room.   It must have been some kind of youth conference.

There was a trip by chartered bus to the Palmyra pageant.  It was at least a three day trip considering the travel time.  I also think that this was one of the few times when I went to the pageant that I didn't get rained on during the pageant.  We also went to the Sacred Grove, the Smith farmhouse and walked up the Hill Cumorah.

When I was in high school, we had a day outing at Andrews Air Force base.  Again, there must have been some connections by a stake member.  We toured the base and ended with a dinner and dance on the base.

We had a youth conference at Galludet College in Washington D.C.  It was an overnight activity where we stayed in the dorms on campus.  I remember swimming and, of course, the big dance the last night.

Our stake had a welfare farm back then.  We had one activity where all the youth from the stake went to the farm to pick feed corn.  We spent most of the day working our way up and down rows and rows of corn.  The corn was loaded into big dump trucks.  Many of us rode back from the fields sitting on top of the corn in the truck.  At the end of that activity, we went swimming in the small lake on the farm.  The lake was more like a large pond with a very, very muddy bottom.  I'm not sure how we all got cleaned up enough to get back in cars to go home.

At Girls Camp, we stayed in log cabins with cots that had mattresses. All we had to do was roll out a sleeping bag.  The camp had a central lodge for group meetings.  A central kitchen with a dining hall.  There were also bathrooms with hot and cold water. There was also a lake on the site. As a child and teenager, Girls Camp was my only exposure to camping.  It wasn't very rough.  It was my only camping experience until at twenty five years later when my husband took our family camping.

Then there were the Roadshows.  Every year, the youth and their leaders were given a general theme for the show.  In each ward, a 10 to 15 minute skit was developed including some original music.  We made our own scenery and costumes and practiced, practiced, practiced.  Back then the Roadshows traveled between ward buildings.  You had a certain amount of time to get on stage, set up your scenery, perform your skit and get back off stage.  Awards were given for various categories.  I think that there was an over all honors award too.  It was pretty competitive.

One year the theme of our ward's Roadshow was "Why is the Mona Lisa smiling?".  I had the role of Mona Lisa.  Most of the action went around me while I posed behind a picture frame as Mona Lisa.  I had the final song of the show.  It was short, but answered the question why the Mona Lisa was smiling.  Here are the words,  "Now my feet can be much chipper since I have these fluffy pink slippers.".  At that point, I showed my feet wearing fluffy pink slippers.  Cheesy, I know.  But that's what roadshows were - definitely cheesy.

WE'VE COME A LONG WAY

Notice:  If you are a guy and reading this blog, you may want to skip this post.  It's about female stuff.

Back in the olden days, there were certain things that weren't generally discussed.  The most prevalent "hush, hush" topic was anything to do with "the birds and the bees".  There were no Maturation classes in the fifth grade that students were required attend.  Kids were left to figure it out on their own if the information didn't come from home. I'm sure that some of my friends must have had that conversation with their parents, or at least, their mother.  But at our house, I never had "the talk".

I remember a day when I was a young teenager that my mother came home from grocery shopping and handed me a package of Kotex sanitary pads and a sanitary napkin belt.  All she said when she gave them to me was "You're going to need these some day soon.".  That was it. With that, she just left the room.
Thank goodness for older sisters and friends who had already reached this milestone in their lives or I probably wouldn't have had any idea what these items were for.  As it was, I really wasn't sure HOW they were supposed to be used.  I'm pretty sure that when the time happened, I asked my sister, Linda, for help.  I don't think I ever had a conversation with my mother about all this except to tell her when I needed more.  Linda probably got her information from our oldest sister.  Unless, Mother had "the talk" with Karen, Karen probably had to go some where else to figure it all out.  It's amazing.

As I became more aware of the need for sanitary napkins and, like most girls, really didn't like the time of the month when they had to be used.  I knew that my mother used tampons.  I asked her if I could use them.  I got a resounding "No" from her.  I think that her refusal to buy them for me had something to do with the notion that I would not be a virgin if I used tampons.  It was many years, probably when I was in college, before I made the switch.

When the time came that I finally needed a bra, my mother bought me what was called a training bra. (What I want to know is what were those training bras suppose to be training, anyway?) She never said much about that either.  She may have even just guessed what size I'd need, bought it and gave it to me.  As I needed more than the training bra, I had them.  But I don't remember going shopping with her for them.  Did she give the money to my older sisters and we went together?  I have no idea.

It was a different age back then.  You didn't see advertisements on television for bras or women's personal care items.  There were probably ads in print for these things, but they certainly weren't filling up the pages of women's magazines like they do today.   But advertising and the public had no problem with ads for cigarettes in print and on television.  It really made no sense.

We've come a long way, baby.

SHOOTING OFF ROCKETS

In the spring of my ninth grade year, I went on an overnight outing that included the Explorer post in our ward.  The Explorers were participating in an event with other Explorer posts in the state in which they designed homemade rockets.  It was a competition of sorts to determine which post had the most effective rocket. The event was held at an Army camp, Camp A. P Hill, that was somewhere in south eastern Virginia. I don't remember why girls from the ward were included in the trip.

We stayed in barracks that I described in my personal history as being a mess.  "They looked like they hadn't been cleaned in years.". I remember that it was hot and muggy. But apparently, I still had a lot of fun.  While waiting for and watching the rocket launches, we stood in a log bunker that provided some protection should there be an errant rocket or two. The only bad thing about the trip was that our post's rocket didn't work.

I may have been excited to go on this adventure because I had a real bad crush on Jimmy, my ninth grade prom date. I knew he would be going and it was an opportunity to hang out with him.

Here's that rocket shoot group.  

 Most of the girls in the picture were in the ninth grade. The boys were in the ninth grade and high school. I'm the second girl from the right side.  Norene is standing to my left.  And, the dark haired, handsome young man behind me is Jimmy.  Wow, I had forgotten how good looking he was.

Some interesting things about this group - the boy directly behind Norene is Kenlee.  He and his younger brother were killed in an automobile accident less than a year later.  They were on their way to Priesthood meeting.  Norene married Monte, the first boy on the left.  The marriage ended divorce after only a few years.  I have no idea what happened to the rest of these kids.  Did the dorky looking guys ever out grow their dorkiness?  Did all of the girls end up married and happy? And who is the girl standing directly behind the girl on the left side?  I know it's a girl because you can see the hem of her skirt behind the girl in front of her.

SAD AND DEPRESSING?

In a personal history that I came across recently, I wrote "Ninth grade was the one that I enjoyed the least."  "The whole year was depressing."  I'm not quite sure why I wrote this because these comments are followed by a recap of some of the fun things that I did during that school year.  The only clue given about my depressing ninth grade year was this "I didn't have as much fun as other years.  I guess I was expecting to much that I didn't get.". I have no recall what those expectations were.

This is what that sad and depressed ninth grader looked like.

She also looked like this.

  I wrote that I had good teachers and that my favorite was Mr. Wood, my geography teacher.  I apparently almost hated my English teacher because was we "just didn't get along".  I was happy that I was made a Musette that year. But it seems as though the highlight of the year was the ninth grade prom.  I must have been on the decorating committee for the dance because in this history I wrote "I helped to make a mural for it.  I was sorta of proud of my first effort of drawing Venus.".  I wonder what the theme of the dance was if it required a mural that included Venus.

I went to the Prom with Jimmy, a boy from the ward.  We double dated with my best friend, Norene, who also went with a boy from the ward.  Jimmy must have been at least 15 because he had a driver's license and access to a car. Back in those olden dates, you could get your driver's license at 15. My date to the prom was the first date I had where a parent didn't have to do the driving.  I remember Jimmy picked me up in either an Oldsmobile or Buick that was painted two-tone blue and white.  It also had huge fins. I felt pretty grown up. 

Now it may seem shocking that at fourteen and a half, I was allowed to date and go on the date in a car.  Back in those olden days, the church didn't have the hard fast rule that teenagers shouldn't go on a date of any kind until they were sixteen.  I never dated anyone steadily at that tender age.  But Jimmy wasn't my first date as I went to a ward Gold and Green ball with a young man in ward the previous winter. 

I finished up the ninth grade with promotion exercises held in the school gym.  Quoting from my personal history "It was all very formal and saddening.".  "Next step, senior high, YORKTOWN HERE WE COME!!".