By Jo Lees R.R. 2 Box 55 Turlock, California |
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Returned - Jan. 24, 1947 with letter |
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Jo Lees R. R. 2 Box 55 Turlock, California By Jo Lees Middle aged women are "girls" but adolescents must be "young ladies." Why do mothers have such poor memories? They were sixteen and seventeen once but you'd never know it when their daughters reach that age. When I was five years old it was, "Jo, must you get so dirty!" At eleven I heard, "Jo, can't you play something more lady-like than baseball?" When I was fifteen I enrolled in a private high school and slaved for two years completing my last three years of my education. The school had formerly been a boys school and still had a minority of the weaker sex. Which should have been heaven for a sixteen year old girl during the meat and men shortage but----no. Josie became a history lover and a man hater. My phone number was obtained and used a few times but soon grew cold after my repeated excuses. Thus my mother began to worry. Was her daughter a wallflower? Did her friends think her too stuffy or not at their social standing? I was a wallflower but of my own doing. I had friends. Friends of both sexes, all equal. Ones who wanted help in Physics, ones who were willing to help me with Spanish, etc. School chums but not dates. This fact high school kids can understand. Why can't mothers? Instead they try their darned to give you an inferiority complex by talking constantly about improving your complexion, your figure, your hair, etc. Until you begin to think you're abnormal because you prefer a good book to a Friday night movie with the gang., I went through this for two years insisting I'd become an old maid if necessary, but I'd still live my own life. In January I graduated and started working in an office. In March, by some act of luck or fate, a young good looking soldier walked into the office and walked out with one of my best friends, his mother. The following week he started working there and we became good friends before I left for a two months vacation. Letters filled the gap and after I came back we saw each other constantly. "This," I thought, "will surely please my mother." Candy, Sunday afternoon calls, Friday and Saturday night dates every week and together a couple of nights during the week and when we could find an excuse. But no, this it seemed did not please mother. On the contrary, she'd look at me sternly and say, "Now you know I have nothing against Johnny, but don't you think you're seeing too much of him lately?" You can't win! You can only shake your head sadly and wonder if mother had so many problems during her courtship as you do. For instance; did her sister have a bed in the living room because there was a housing shortage? And if so, did her sister go to bed at 9:00 p.m. every night and leave mother and her boy friend to hold hands across the kitchen table. Of course after you've endured this crazy way of romancing a few nights you learn that it's easier if you put both chairs on the same side of the table. But, if you are young and supposedly in love this situation will sooner or later fade into the one where you are tenderly embracing in some equally queer position when the swinging door to the dining room opens quickly and there stands grandma in her night gown. "Oh, sorry, just wanted a glass of hot milk" and the door swings shut leaving two red faced kids to laugh or cry depending on their mood. If you've lived through your first seventeen years without getting at least one grey hair you'll get it when your grandmother begins thinking you're going to marry every fellow you go out with. Her scheme usually starts quietly without you even noticing. In fact it isn't until she comes out with something like "I was so relieved to hear Johnny say he didn't believe in whipping his children. I just can't stand to see my grandchildren punished." At that your heart turns flip flops and your lips go dry trying to think of something to say after that or "You know when you marry a Catholic you have to promise to bring your children up into the Catholic church, don't you?" First loves or childish infatuations seldom result in marriage but I can certainly see how they can result in plenty of headaches. If only mothers would remember when they were seventeen and eighteen and not worry so much, I'm sure there would be fewer grey hairs for both mother and daughter. |
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