I think it's funny the Germans had airplanes that were Junkers. "I'm not getting in that Junker."
"Let's get a bunch of Junkers for the Luftwaffe," said Admiral Doenitz.
They probably weren't very funny in the air, though.
Your Germans are not a "tickle-me-ribs" civilization.
Thank goodness for funny countries, uh? (Think we'd be on the Net?) And the rib-tickler Bombers.
Come to think of it, your Japanese weren't ticklish either. But they might be learning. They might be accelerating goofy growth over there. I can't tell what they're doing.
How long has it been since we tickled someone, "to see if they are ticklish?" I don't see that happen these days. You know, at gas stations, and sales meetings. Coffee clutches. I can't even remember the last time I grabbed a person and started tickling to see if they're ticklish.
And that was a great part of youth.
Just dumped in the dirt, there.
Elmo is ticklish.
Let's find, I bet guys named Elmo get tickled. "Elmo's ticklish."
"Let's find out!"
We could call around the country, and see if guys named Elmo are still getting tickled. And get some footage. I bet they are; and they might be the last remnants.
Yah, I remember one of the great things of being seven was having a herd (pod?) of my older-girl cousins grab me, when one of them would say, "He's ticklish."
"Am NOT."
They'd bounce you around like a bubble-blowing lawn mower, and you'd usually wind up on the floor screaming, "STAWP IT! STAAAHWP!" (Like someone would come and help you.)
Women wore bathing caps in those days. It was the days of bathing caps.
They went to the store and got them. "I need a bathing cap." You'd have to go in there with them, to Bullocks Wilshire or some place, and at a counter they'd have these little boxes with smooth and soft sculpted rubber things folded up in them and you had to try to make sure Mom didn't get one with yellow and white daisies on it. Waves were okay. You know, waves of scalloped rubber that went around the top. "I like this 'Seafoam' one with waves."
"Okay."
I liked to watch them put them on. Talk about artistry. Pageantry. Geometry. Sinuousness. Form. (Form with a capital F.)
"Are you going in, Barbara? Paul, check the temperature." I'd swim over to the ladder, where the thermometer was tied up and slung in the water, at the deep end.
"78."
"Ohh. Lovely. Perfect."
"Can I borrow a cap?"
"Peggy; get her a cap."
This is where we get to the sitting Vargas. They'd lean up and spin in their lounge chairs (they got the lounge chairs, the men men got chairs) (and the kids got cement) ~ they'd lean up, spin their legs and sit up perfectly straight, knees and toes together on tip, and start tucking their hair under the cap. Wow. Nice. Statuary. The Sitting Varga.
They look good in the caps, too. Like almost better. Like another specie of woman; specie B. Specie Other. Specie Varga.
Swimmers.
"Going for a swim?"
"Yes."
Specie Jantzen.
God bless Jantzen, uh? I guess They Built The Swimsuit.
Before that, there was nothing.
Our Creation Myths tell us so.
And our magazines.
Same thing.
Jantzen is right up the road from us, in East Portland. The buildings are beautiful, and when you walk in the halls, the pastel walls are (truly) embellished with Petty Girl Jantzen advertisements. Yum yum yum yum. I have a few myself. Petty Girl Jantzen advertisements. Of course, I have some.
The mystery is how they, Jantzen Swimwear, got started in Portland. As no one here swims.
Except for water ouzels, swimming is O-U-T.
People here, die of exposure, and drown.
Wash up.
But I guess if you're going to wash up, you might as well wash up in a Jantzen.
Hmm. (A slogan for the Nineties?)
Do women wear caps anymore? I don't think they do. Of course, I haven't seen anyone swimming, in twenty-five years. But I bet they don't. No; pools and women are too civilized. I mean stodgy, exactly. You can't go to the Phoenix Biltmore and do cannonballs with Jane Wyman's grandaughter in the pool. Nuh-uh. I'd make a bet on that.
Used to be a good cannonball was an asset. A reliable, treasured instrument, of social raucous-ment. Dis-organization. A way to get the girls all wet, and start them screaming and getting up and running around and yelling at you. Swearing sometimes even. Nothing like surfacing to see the damage and chaos and girls and getting thumbs up. "Three paperbacks and a towel."
People smoked in those days, and it killed most of them. But your life wasn't worth a book of Green Stamps if you got their ciggies wet.
Hence; the development of the cigarette purse. With the little bow-type clasp on the top, and a tuck on the front for the lighter. Lighters were rectangular, and metal, and fun; not plastic and cylindrical; every household cabinet had a can of Ronco lighter fluid. God knows where you got that cigarette purse. Maybe at Bullocks. With the caps, at the counter.
I don't think, I mean I'm pretty sure I know, it wasn't easy to put on, one of those caps. To actually get the hair under there, which they really needed to do. All of it. It took some time. Several minutes; perfect for casual daydreaming. Delicious turning and tucking and reaching and a little squirming and dancing. I bet girls these days can't even do it. Shee-it. Criminy.
Don't even know how. Let alone, how to sit like that.
If a whole generation passes, without the skills of the elders being passed down, all can be lost.
It's lost.
Shoot. That was nice.
The bathing cap. The Bathing Cap. The Bathers. Cezanne always painted bathers. Always. Somebody else, painted the rest of his stuff; while he and Matisse worked on the bathers. I saw them once, north of LA. It was the happiest day of my life. I tried to take a picture. I've only seen the negs, but the moon is in there, and the shore heading down to Morro and the icicle-lighted waves of summer ocean water; midnight blue water and pearlish churn; like stone azurite lace; and them diving under, in the moonlight. Them the bathers, the Polynesians, the idle natives; in the warm wash, having fun.
These were hybrid bathers; hybrid of Gauguin's and Cezanne's. Diving into the frothy water silhouetted in moonlight, and twisting in the gentle arc of Matisse. Hands and arms up over their heads, to curl over into the waves. Diving sideways into the water, like fish.
Eternal. |
