Ailantha
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Our Barbies, Ourselves

3/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of my adult attempts at making a dress for my daughter's Barbie.

        At 13 I was still playing Barbies.  Oh, I had other interests, too:  Girl Scouts, Beatles, of course (big time!),  and joining  in pick-up games of soft ball at the playground or the not-yet-occupied section of the cemetery around the corner, touch foot-ball in my back yard, or half-court basketball in anybody's driveway that had a basketball hoop.  Growing up in northeast Philadelphia we were city kids, hither and yon all day long at some occupation or other.
        But here's the thing:  I wasn't very good at team sports.  Not that I didn't like running around
with everybody else, but I was on the timid side and just could never seem to work up any real passion about winning or losing.   And there was one awesome basketball player in our 'hood who systematically hurt my tender feelings by her high-handed attitude regarding my lack of  prowess on the driveway. 
        (I recall this same girl one day yelling at my friend Michelle during a game. 
        "Dribble, Michelle, dribble!"  she yelled.  Wonderful Michelle stopped where she was, let go of the ball, and started dribbling [spit!] on the spot!).
        Ah, but at games of Barbie we shone, Michelle and I, along with a few others in our little Barbie coalition:  Michelle's sister Mimi, our friend Judy, and occasionally a pretty friend of Judy's whose name I don't recall (forgive me, Judy's pretty friend!).
        Of course, playing Barbies at 13 was a more advanced variation of the 8-year-old's version.  We were more into the clothes than anything, I think.  One of our mothers made the auspicious discovery of a local woman who sewed Barbie dresses.  Fifty cents for a short dress or a dollar for a long gown.  We of the Barbie crowd believed we'd discovered a gold mine!  The dresses were all of the same style and cut:  bodice and shoulder straps, full puffy skirt at the waist, snaps at the back.  But the dresses fit our Barbies' svelt forms perfectly, and what beautiful materials this lady used on her miniature creations!  I remember that for my 13th birthday someone (probably Michelle) gave me one of these dresses,  a ball gown in pink lace that  was just too lovely for words. 
        So we dressed our Barbies and, budding seamstresses that we all were back in the days when girls still sewed (I know, many still do), sometimes we sat around sewing our own primitive little Barbie doll outfits:  a wide circle of material with a hole in the center and a snap made do for a skirt and a long rectangle folded in half with a neck hole cut across the fold and indentations cut along the sides then sewn up made a respectable blouse.  Then there were the  matching scarves, shawls, sashes and belts that we could all manage to produce, sitting and chatting away the time in our little doll sewing circles.
        I seems to me that by the time I'd reached 12 or so we seldom actually got around to playing with our dolls anymore, but what we more tended to do was dress up and set up the dolls, then together make up characters and  story lines with dialogue, as in: "Let's say this is Karlene.  Let's say she's just had a big fight with her best friend, Joanne, and really wants to get back together but Joanne won't talk to her, so..."    etc, etc, etc.  We'd decide upon our plot, pass some dialogue back and forth, then when the story  was resolved to our satisfaction we'd  put our dolls away.  I remember once getting caught by Judy trying to pass off a story line I'd seen the night before on the Patti Duke show on TV.  Judy had seen the show, too, but we all thought it was basically a good story so we tweaked the dialogue a little then went with it. 
        A word about Barbie's other half, the  Ken doll:  you know, I don't remember any of us having much interest in Ken.  We all had several Barbies and maybe one Ken doll apiece if that, but he more or less sat on the sidelines, one Ken doll in a harem of Barbies.  We took even less interest in Barbie's "little sister",  a doll named Skipper.  It was Barbie who ruled the game.
        So go figure this:  for all the hours I spent playing  Barbies during my formative years,  I've always hated getting dressed up myself.  Never could be bothered with it.
        But I do still love making up characters and writing dialogue.












0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    "Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    or from
    The Book Loft
    of German Village,
    Columbus, Ohio
    Picture
    Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    RSS Feed

    I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
    hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers.

    Categories

    All


























































































Proudly powered by Weebly