We have four granddaughters ages 5-9, and they all were here at the holidays.
One of the things they love to do together is play dressup and put on plays. As it happens, I have a basement closet full of costumes — most too big for them — that are pretty much a trip down my own and their parents’ memory lane.
There are various and sundry old bridesmaid dresses of mine. My kids were in a lot of musical theater so we have costumes from “Annie” and “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Music Man” and “The King and I,” among others.
There are Halloween leftovers as well as a Martha Washington-like gown I made for my daughter to wear as a teen volunteer at the Traverse City history center. It’s currently out of the mix because the waist is completely ripped from the very short girls stepping on the very long skirt all the time.
And then there is the midi-length red velvet coat. When I came downstairs while they were playing this last time, one of the girls was standing there among the costume debris wearing that coat.
I bought it when I was a finalist for homecoming queen as a high school senior, and it still makes me feel a little sheepish when I see it. As a junior, I had been nominated for homecoming queen but didn’t make it any farther. My dad says that’s when I began campaigning to win the following year.
I don’t agree. It just happened that I was friendly, involved in a lot of stuff like student government and class council and pretty much got along with everybody.
Anyway, senior year came around and this time I was not only nominated, but made the finals. That would mean riding on the back of an open convertible onto the football field at halftime during the homecoming game with the other finalists. I certainly needed a new dress for that.
I didn’t go shopping intending to buy a royal-looking coat, too, but there it was in all its regal redness and I couldn’t resist. Only later as I was getting ready for the evening did I realize that it might look like I jumped the gun with this queen-like coat — as if I was planning to win (which I wasn’t, though I really wanted to) — and began to feel silly. But I’d spent a week of my A&W carhop pay for it so there was no going back. And it was really, really pretty.
As it happened, I did win. (I was very close to the two teachers who did the vote tally. They were honorable types who would not rig an election, I was and remain sure, but there has always been a tiny nagging doubt.)
At the time, I was madly in love and my boyfriend and I were the center of attention at the homecoming dance the next night. It turned out he wasn’t thrilled with being the center of attention and so began the start of a problem that grew and eventually led to the end of the relationship.
So I lost the boy. But I still have the coat.
Now my granddaughters do, too.