Remember? Dearest Jan,
Our culotte dresses back in the 1960’s? Didn’t we think we were the hottest things going? With our home sewn outfits, our matching wooden handled pocketbooks, our Pappagallo flats and our pink Tangee lipstick, we were stylin’! We added a spritz of our fav perfume “Heaven Sent” (for me) and Yardley’s “Lily of the Valley,” (for you) and we were sweetly ready to face another day of high school, which we pretty much dreaded.
I don’t think we ever sewed our culotte dresses with sleeves in them. Those were too time consuming. It wasn’t easy getting the inset sleeves just right. Besides when it was chilly we liked wearing our little, white round-collared blouses under the culotte dresses. We turned out the “jumpsuits,” as some girls in other parts of the country called them, a dime a dozen.
Remember the fulfilling feelings when we had gotten through a sewing project without the sewing machine malfunctioning and getting the bobbin and thread all knotted up. Seemed to happen every other minute – that temperamental tension device on the machine caused ultimate frustration!
We were always under our own pressure to get our latest fashions completed to wear to school the next day to show our girlfriends. Remember?
What ever happened to our sewing machine anyway? Did you hand it down to one of your daughters?
Jan, memories of all these products and more came flooding back to me as I wrote my memoir. Did you know that some of these products can still be purchased? At the Vermont Country Store. And lots of other throwback products from the good ole days! www.vermontcountrystore.com.
Jan, thanks for walking down memory lane with me this morning. Next time we are together, hopefully it won’t be too long, I’ll do as you have requested. I’ll sign your copy of Gift of a Lifetime: Finding Fulfilling Things in the Unexpected!
Much love. Your Twin Sister.
P.S. How do you want me to sign your copy? With my maiden name Sue Batton or my married name – Sue Batton Leonard?
All Things Fulfilling 
Oh yeah, I remember all of these except the Tangee Lipstick- our mother sure had a fit about us wearing makeup in junior high school and high school. But the memory most fun was your temper tantrums as you attempted to sew and the bobbin became a tangled up mess! Some how thru the years you developed much more patience, as evident in your patience to write and publish a book. Kudos!
I wanted to take that sewing machine and smash it to smithereens every time the bobbin messed up – which was every other minute!
You don’t remember the Tangee Lipstick? It was supposed to bring out your natural beauty -” it went on clear and then transformed into the perfect shade for you”. I bought it at Reads drugstore when I worked there as a cashier in high school. I figured Mom would think it was just Chapstick because it was clear – until you put it on.
Sue,
I saw Jan’s posting on Facebook about your book. I read the sample on Amazon, and will buy the rest to read. When you had your surgery did you live in the house next to my parents, or had you already moved down the street by then?
Cindy
Hi Cindy – wonderful to hear from you after all these decades. Amazing how we connect through FB these days. No we were in the second of our childhood homes by then. I think we moved out of the house next to your parents when we were only a couple of years old.