Thirty-five new online high school yearbook images illustrating a variety of femulations now grace our collection on flickr thanks to Starla.
I uploaded the new images to flickr and they are now ready for your viewing pleasure* including the four ballerinas pictured above, who donned tutus way back in 1949.
One of my first girly moments was related to the ballet. When I was 5-years-old, my mother enrolled my younger sister and I in a dancing school. My class had about 15 girls and one other boy. Once a week, we practiced tap and ballet for an hour under the tutelage of young female instructors.
I have no memory why my mother enrolled us at dancing school. I could understand enrolling my sister, but why did she immerse me, her only son, in that world of femininity? It certainly was not going to make a man out of me. Maybe she detected the girl in me and thought that I would enjoy participating in such a girly activity.
If that was her plan, she was correct. I enjoyed every minute of it!
I loved learning dance and being treated like the other girls. The young instructors became my role models. I even recall dreaming (both day dreaming and sleep dreaming) about dancing as a ballerina, wearing a pink leotard, tutu, ballet shoes, and makeup with my long blond hair put up in a pony-tail.
Due to tight family finances, we only took dance classes for one year, but that one year immersion in femininity left a life-long impression on this girl.
* To view the latest additions to the collection:
Method 1: Open one of the Yearbooks sets (A through Z) and you will find the newest uploads at the end/bottom of the set. (The oldest uploads appear at the beginning/top of the set.)
Method 2: Open my photostream and you will find the newest uploads at the top of page 1. The uploads get older as the page numbers get higher with the oldest uploads on the last page.
By the way, the contents of the Yearbook A through Z sets are organized according to school name, for example, the photos from Hard Knox High School would be in the Yearbooks H set.
Back in the 60s, due to family finances my folks rented out our den to a guy who ran a music school. One day he would be there giving piano and accordion lessons, another guy would come and give guitar lessons. One afternoon/evening a week Carol would come to give dance lessons. Carol was a beautiful girl in her twenties who was always dressed in a coctail dress and heels, she wore beautiful heavy makeup and emitted an intoxicating aroma of perfume, makeup and hairspray. She taught adults as well as children. I would love to watch her and sometimes she would invite me to join her classes to serve as a partner to the girls.
ReplyDeleteShe would always arrive wearing the pointed toed pumps of the era but would change to ballet flats for lessons. I remember trying on her pumps.
Thank you for this post and allowing me to conjur up some memories from my own youth.
Pat
The girls in my elementary school classes would go to ballet across the street after school. I remember the day of classes they would all being wearing their leotards. I would be so jealous. I remember walking by the school wishing I was in there with them........
ReplyDeleteOur twin boys took ballet lessons for one year along with their older sister. As I recall, they wore animal costumes for the recital dance. They enjoyed it, but they found their real love when she did soccer for one year.
ReplyDeleteThere's a pretty good dance school down the street from where I work that does adult ballet lessons. I've been thinking of giving that a try.