Is that a Knot In Your Underwear?
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
When I was 8 or 9 my family used to find it immensely amusing for my sister and I to come down the stairs in our long underwear and dance to the delighted squeals of aunts and uncles. Whether my sister felt she couldn’t keep up with my rhythmic gyrations or feminine modesty struck her at an early age, I do not know, but she retired from our dance team as a child. Eventually I too gave it up after the embarrassing trapdoor incident when I was 27.
Not often, but every now and then, some incident from my childhood pops into my mind and once again the shame and embarrassment surfaces all over again. That is one of them, but there are plenty more. I am not going to bring up the time as a cub I wet my pants coming home from a boy scout parade but since you asked…
In my defense, the scout leader – who organized this obligatory rally requiring every scout troop and cub pack in Toronto to stand for hours listening to Lord Roland run on and on about Baden Powell in a park with only four toilets – was later hanged. My knee socks never did dry.
I can actually remember my homemade underpants hanging down below my short pants in kindergarten. They were not frillies, or at least I don’t think they were, so why was I upset? Did some other kid laugh at me?
And if he did, could it be it was he who was embarrassed since he had no underwear on at all? This was during the war. No one on Billings Avenue had any money. Maybe his family had no underwear at all, or perhaps they had just one pair shared by his mother and her six kids and everyone got to wear them one day a week. His father was likely overseas and his underwear was supplied, probably itchy as hell like the pants, but at least he had some.
The kid laughed at me so no one would laugh at him because that day was a Tuesday and it was his turn and the underwear they all shared was his mother’s, pink with lace around the bottom.
Mary’s mom made her girl’s underwear from flour bags during the war. Everyone knew which girls were Surgenors in the school change room. They were the ones with Olgilvie Flour across the bum.
To be honest I don’t really remember the kindergarten underwear incident. As a matter of fact I don’t remember a kid laughing at me. Why would I? It was 81 years ago. But I believe the incident was the beginning of my lifelong obsession with fashion and the reason I am looked upon today as the epitome of class and styling. Odd, the editors of Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ) never interviewed me – and claim never to have even heard of me.
Were we poor? I don’t know, we sure in hell weren’t rich. I have mentioned this before but there was my Aunt Doris, Mom, Maureen and me, an absolute moron, living with my Mom’s or Dad’s cousin Amy, her two kids and her husband, Gord. I’m sure many times Gord must have thought, ‘I don’t remember signing up for this. Four adults, four kids and one bathroom. I should have joined the army.’
Imagine! They were probably married in ‘36 and looking for a peaceful little love nest. Then the war came and his longed for love nest was now a home for lost souls and a seven year old kid with his homemade underpants hanging down his leg. Life can be cruel sometimes.
I’m sure I mentioned a while back that sometime in the 80s I met a woman at a party who had lived on Billings Avenue. It came up in a casual conversation about where we used to live and be-damned if she didn’t live there too. Both of us went to Duke of Connaught Public School. We were both kids when we lived there but didn’t remember each other. But as she was leaving the party she looked back and said. ‘Wait a minute, by any chance you aren’t the kid whose homemade underwear hung down below his short pants?’
(Image Supplied)
