When I saw this movie back in 1988, I was totally intrigued! Keep in mind that when I was coming up and getting old enough for stockings and high heels, the only option to keep up one's "nylons" was a garter belt or a girdle. This just looked a lot better to my way of thinking! Pantyhose had not been an option until about the late 60's when mini skirts made their first appearance.
Pantyhose at first seemed to me to be a bit like wearing long johns. Only when I started wearing the very short skirts did I switch over to pantyhose. But I always found them ugly and uncomfortable.
In my early 40's, I had a new husband and a desire to keep him happy. I figured one way to keep a smile on his face was to start wearing these new fangled "thigh high" contraptions.
Alex worked in the East Bay and I worked in San Francisco. We had a house in a sort of run down area of San Francisco. Oh, the house was nice enough, but the neighborhood was a bit on the blighted side. Never mind. When ever I live in a bad area, I get to know all of my gangster neighbors. Better yet, I get to know their favorite sports teams, their kids, their baby mamas, and all their names. Walking along at dusk on my way home, calling out to "Spider", "Gonzo" and "Big Ed" and inquiring about their families and such kept me pretty damn safe. (See, I can blend in like that.) I would run down to the corner store at midnight for a little somethin' somethin' and run into most of the people from the neighborhood either milling about at the store or on the pay phone next to the store. It never occurred to me to be afraid of my neighbors. I really had no reason to be. (It did seem a little weird that many of my neighbors liked to hang out at corner stores at midnight, but then I was there too so it must not be that big a deal.)
As you can see, I get sidetracked kind of easy. Anyway, I bought a bunch of these thigh high stockings and wore them to work every day under my little stylish business suit. The breeze hit me just right as I walked along in my skirts. (You girls will understand what I mean.) Everything was good in my world.
Until the day that it wasn't. It was summertime. And hot. I was walking from the train to my house about 5 in the afternoon. All of my gangster neighbors were out in their front yards or on their front steps on this warm afternoon. They called out to me as I approached and I waved at them and grinned. Then I got a really funny sensation at the top of my leg. It felt like a hard snap. The elastic on my thigh high stocking had popped.
Immediately, I slowed down my perky walk to a sort of knock kneed shuffle. I was trying to keep the stocking up on my leg until I got passed the people on the street. I kept moving and felt the damn stocking fall down to my ankle. Of course, I just kept walking and wondered if anybody actually noticed. I mean these people were gangsters, not the fashion police, right?
I was sweating and cussing by the time I made it to my front door. I went in the house and tossed out every pair of those frigging 'thigh high" stockings. Oh, and I moved to Alameda right after that too.
