American Thighs (9 page)

I do not know if this is a widespread phenomenon—so widespread that it could be called the Norm—today. Please e-mail me at [email protected] and let me know if the girls at your favorite college have, in fact, gone wild and taken to wearing cocktail dresses to football games. I really want to know.

So, yes, at Ole Miss, they prance up and down the stadium steps in spike heels and slinky dresses—oh, but only until halftime. NOBODY stays for the SECOND half of a football game—what are you, nuts? By halftime, even their darlin' YOUNG feet are throbbing so much they can barely stand up and it will take some minutes to totter their way from the stadium over to THE GROVE—where all the partying is going on—and that is the Whole Point of the Day, after all.

The Grove is a beautiful part of the very lovely Ole Miss campus, and on game days, it is completely covered with the fanciest TENTS that can be had for any amount of money and/or other valuable considerations, and the tents are full of large television sets, comfy seating arrangements, catered foodstuffs,
and, of course, copious quantities of refreshing adult beverages. This luxurious array is, of course, paid for by the FORMER students of the university—these would be the current students' PARENTS—who are also out in full fashion force for the occasion—though cute as the outfits admittedly are, there are, thankfully, precious few four-inch heels in those ranks, which I think shows remarkable decorum and admirable restraint. I am told that the occasional mom gets shitfaced and dances with what most consider to be age-inappropriate abandon for that setting—but by and large, it's a pleasant way to pass an afternoon.

EXCEPT that the whole point, in my apparently stupid opinion, is not only to GO to a football game but to actually WATCH the GAME—and that, for me, would mean the ENTIRE game. I mean, if I was just gonna watch HALF the game, I'd wanna watch the LAST half, wouldn't you? At least know if we won and stuff like that—but I am apparently a dinosaur in my quaint notion of both attire for and insistence on observation of the game of football. For Bailey, football is just like the ice cream that serves as a mere vehicle for the most desired part of the dessert—the chocolate sauce. The game provides a convenient time and place for her and all her gorgeous counterparts to display their fabulosity.

They love it when they have a Manning-type team on the field—because, of course, that means more people in the stands (for the first half) to view THEM in all their finery. Sigh. And I
know that, should I show up in Oxford one Saturday for a game, the daughter of that drink-dazed, Grove-dancing mom would likely not be fazed at all by that spectacle—because at least that mom would be dripping in designer-wear and cute, if somewhat sensible, shoes. But my own daughter would probably never be able to live down the mortification she would no doubt suffer at the sight of her own football fanatic mother—standing up, hollering her head off, wearing blue jeans and a Sweet Potato Queen T-shirt AND cap—Lord, probably those rhinestone sunglasses, too, if it's a sunny day—and tennis shoes—IN THE STANDS and WATCHING the WHOLE EN-tire GAME. Oh, the horror. I just love her too much to subject her to it.

Free Will Flying Leap

In my past—my long ago and far away past—life, I was a fitness trainer. Sigh. Those days are so very long gone. There are so many things I remember saying, out loud, back then, to clients and innocent bystanders alike in the weight room at my beloved YMCA. I firmly believed them to be true when I said them—and I must say that, IN THEORY, I suppose I still believe them today, although the firmness of my conviction has gone the way of the corresponding consistency of my muscle tone.

One statement that is outstanding in my mind at the mo
ment, as I sit typing with my head flopped over to one side in an attempt to stretch the knot out of my shoulder—it will no doubt come even more to the forefront later, when I attempt to rise from my chair and must stand for a moment beside it, allowing the kinks in my hips and back to subside a bit before trying to locomote to a different room. I think sometimes that if the house suddenly erupted into flames, I would more than likely be charcoal before I loosened up enough to approximate even so much as a slow trot toward escaping.

The thing that I used to say, and there is and was apparently supporting evidence in favor of it—although, as I said, it is less and less meaningful to me personally—is: there should be no real difference between what we, as human types, are capable of doing physically at age twenty-five and age fifty-five. And I would say that I wholeheartedly agreed with that and was living proof of it myownself, up until around age forty-three—which seems to be the age at which I boarded the downhill slide, and I have never really gotten off it.

Now, at fifty-five, I can still sort of remember stuff I used to be able to do without thinking—walk ten miles or more in a day, curl thirty-pound dumbbells with each arm, squat 135 pounds, move stoves, etc., and now my iron skillet is a challenging lift and I worry about house fires a lot.

At age forty-three, the time I religiously allotted for exercise began to dwindle. The demands of single-motherhood, taking care of my own mom, running a home alone, working eight or
more hours a day, AND writing began to chip away at my time for myself. Handling all of my other responsibilities—for which there was literally no one else to whom I could turn for any help whatsoever, it was all me or nobody—made it more and more impossible for me to exercise for an hour or so a day.

By the time I was forty-six, “my” time had completely escaped me and I have yet to recapture it. So now, at fifty-five, I know, without a glimmer of a doubt, I absolutely positively CANNOT DO many of the things that I could do at twenty-five. I can still breathe—that's about the only one I've held on to. And I wonder—is it possible to reclaim myself? What's the best I could hope for? If not twenty-five, then is even forty-three a possibility?

The good thing—and the bad thing—is I KNOW it IS possible. I have seen it done.

I used to write a humorous fitness column for our state's largest newspaper, the
Clarion-Ledger,
and during that time, I chanced upon the Senior Olympics, for which, let it be duly noted, I AM NOW QUALIFIED, along with AARP.

In writing about the Senior Olympics at that time, I encountered a woman who, at sixty-eight, after an entire lifetime of quiet and sedentary living, had become the leading long jumper in her class. I asked her HOW this came to be. I was impressed—very impressed—even though I was only about forty-one or so and at what I considered the top of my own personal game, and so sixty-eight still seemed ancient and re
mote to me—which it so does NOT today. Anyway, I asked her about her path to Senior Olympic gold and she said, oh, when she was about sixty-six or so, she read about the Senior Olympics—in particular, the long jump event—in the paper—the very same one that I wrote for—and she thought to herself, huh, I bet I could do that, and she just went out in the backyard—and started jumping.

That was it. She read a short piece about it and caught a little spark from it, believed she could do as well as anybody else at it, went out in the backyard, and commenced trundling herself across the yard in one direction, ending with as much of a leap as she could muster, then turning around and doing it in the other direction.

After a month or so, she decided she was making progress, and she was committed to her goal of at least entering the Senior Olympics the following year, so she dug herself a sand pit to land in. Just got her a shovel at the Ace Hardware store and started digging in the rock-hard July Mississippi dirt in her backyard. She dug it all herself then she ordered up a load of sand and she spread it all in her hand-dug pit herveryownself, Little Red Hen that she was. She wisely placed the pit in the center of her yard, so she could run from one side, jump, then haul herself up and trot to the other end of the yard, turn around, and head back to the pit for another full-body fling, so efficient.

She never said a word to a soul about it. She had a tall pri
vacy fence around her backyard and I can only imagine that not a few neighbors wondered what was going on back there—if any sounds of her exertions were escaping the confines of her yard. The folks who delivered the load of sand might have caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the site for quite a large sandbox in the center of the backyard of a retiree with no grandchildren and their curiosity must surely have been piqued.

The postman might have been given pause when deliveries to her house changed from romance novels, candy, and old-lady clothing vendors to supplements and equipment for athletes. He never asked and she never told. She just kept right on jumping in solitude, and the next year she not only entered but gave quite a good showing in the state Senior Olympics. The following year, she went all the way to National and came home with gold.

It's only added probably a hundred or so good years to her life—plus all the men she meets are pretty perky as well. And it all started because she just got off her mature and matronly ass and TOOK, as they say, A FLYING LEAP.

So perhaps there is hope for even the likes of slack-ass me—maybe I will yet reclaim some vestige of my late, and much-lamented, lithe. But here's some great news for those of you Larva and even younger youngsters out there who are currently sitting on your collective asses: as you age, you will find that your capacity for THAT not only never diminishes but you will
also, as an added benefit, find that you have EVEN MORE ass upon which to sit, every single year. Bonus!

E
arly in life I inexplicably formed and unreasonably held on to a well-defined ideal for what I would personally look like if and when I achieved Perfection. On that great gettin' up mornin', I would look in the mirror and grinning back at me would be the most dainty and delicate flower of femininity. (There would be only one person in the mirror—me—the aforementioned flower reflection would not be that of the tiny person standing next to me—although somehow, that's more how it's turned out in real life—but I get ahead of myself.)

The little blossom in the mirror would be, in fact, little—no more than five-two—and she would have long, thick, luxuriously radiant red hair—an emphatic auburn, more precisely—her eyes would be sparkling, twinkling, and luminous, and they would be green. Although diminutive in stature, she would nonetheless be built like a very small brick shithouse.

Before I Go Any Further

Let me pause a moment and say a word in defense of the brickshithouse appellation. It has come to my attention that there is a faction out there (of, in my opinion, impossibly tight-assed literalists) who have decided, because they don't have enough to do, that the song “Brick House” is somehow “demeaning and degrading and derogatory” to women because of the “shithouse” analogy. Now, granted, lyrically, it's hardly a sonnet set to music, but please, give me a fucking BREAK. They have twisted it around in their irritating little minds to interpret it in a way that identifies women as “shit,” and anybody with even the smallest fraction of a brain SHOULD be able to tell that it says nothing of the kind and they COULD discern this fact if they weren't so afflicted with cranio-rectal inversion syndrome (heads up their own asses).

These people have obviously never spent any amount of time in any locale where the only place to relieve themselves was right out there amongst the great outdoors. If they had, those individuals would have developed a deep and abiding respect and almost affection for even the most primitive of privies where one could, in absence of actual comfort, at least enjoy a modicum of privacy in which to conduct one's bidness without worrying about peeing (or worse) on their feet or squatting on a cactus and such.

Rural dwellers considered themselves very fortunate indeed
when time and economics allowed for the construction of such a facility on their own premises. The pocketbooks of most families would usually allow for only the crudest of shacks for this purpose, and, while functional for a while, they were not generally as sturdy and well constructed as the houses—where the people lived—or even the barns—where the animals lived. In fact, it was not unusual to find barns that were in better condition than the homes—livestock and farm equipment being more expensive to replace than, say, people and furniture.

The outhouse was good for only one thing and nobody spent one second longer in it than absolutely necessitated by the moment's affairs, and so it got short shrift in both the construction and the maintenance departments and nobody much cared—UNTIL, of course, a brisk wind blew up and carried it off, and THEN, oh my, yes, then there was a great weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Any outhouse was preferable to out-BACK and now they were forced to get back to nature in one of our least favorite ways.

Therefore, before the advent of indoor plumbing, for one to have an outhouse made of BRICK was the ultimate in the high (and dry) end of luxury, the most divinely decadent accommodation, the most conspicuous display of wealth and prosperity imaginable. Who, after all, had the time and/or money to dedicate to the construction of a brick shithouse?

If you had a brick outhouse (and I don't personally know of anybody who ever did, never having run in very high circles),
you were, in fact, in today's nomenclature, THE SHIT. You could prolly be elected governor or even higher, should you aspire to such, just because of that brick shithouse, once word got around that you had one. (I've seen people elected on endorsements far less ringing.)

So for someone to be “built like a brick shithouse” indicates that this individual is ve-ry well put together, and this is a highly favorable and desirable compliment. This is not to be confused with someone perhaps saying that you are built like a “fireplug,” which is an object equally substantial in nature but the comparison is not at all complimentary. However, brick shithouse is high praise and should you hear it applied in a description of your own person, you should allow yourself to receive it as such.

Thank Yew, Thank Yew Verra Much

A word about receiving compliments: there is a difference in HEARING a compliment and actually RECEIVING it. A beloved church-lady friend was paid a compliment by Queen Gwen, and upon hearing it the friend's face lit up as she tilted her head heavenward and lifted her hands. “Why, thank you—I am RE-CEIVING that!” A discussion ensued. Church Lady told Gwen that her pastor had talked about how it's wrong and even sinful to slough off a compliment with something negative—like, “Cute shoes!” “What, these old things?” That a compliment ain't nuthin' but a BLESSIN' and we should be GLAD about 'em
and RECEIVE 'em as such. So now, if y'all happen to pay me or Gwen a compliment, we will grin a big thankee at you and tell you we are RECEIVIN' THAT! I encourage you to do the same—see if it doesn't give you and your praise-giver a little lift and a giggle.

Okay, so finally—back to the reflection that I wanted in my mirror—the elfin creature would have a brickshithousey quality to her and her little ole feet would be positively precious in their lilliputian-sized shoes. She would also be able to sing like the best one in the whole choir of angels, but you couldn't tell that just by looking at her in the mirror so we'll leave that for now.

Real Women's Fight Song

One more aside regarding musical references to women's anatomies that may or may not be construed as derogatory: in my humble opinion, as an actual woman with an actual enormous behind, Sir Mix-a-Lot, with his famous anthem “Baby Got Back,” did more for the cause of Normal-Sized Women than anybody since Peter Paul Rubens painted that Normal-Sized Venus. It's one of the songs that I would like played at my funeral. I would also like Randy Newman's “Short People” but that's another subject for another time, perhaps in a few pages, I don't know, we'll see.

Of course, while I do think it's a positive thing for us to join in the celebration of our fabulous brickshithousey Amazon
ness and it's definitely a step in the right direction to have our large behinds lauded—won't it be a swell day for Womankind when the latest hit is “Baby Got BRAINS”?

My Failures Are Manifold

My sister, Judy, was six years older than me—she still is, of course, but it no longer represents the huge physiological differences it did when, say, I was seven and she was thirteen. Now, at fifty-six and sixty-two, we're both similarly geezerlike. But in my formative years, Judy's SHAPE created the earliest recorded envy in my soul. Judy's body had curves like an hourglass—mine was straight up and down. Other than the big disparity between the comparative width of my shoulders and the ostrichlike skinniness of my neck, my body was one long (and getting longer) stringy straight line.

Viewed from the side, Judy had parts that stuck out, top and bottom, front and back. Viewed from the side, I had a nose, albeit a small one. From the back, Judy's pedal pushers were pertly rounded, while it looked like a band of gypsies might have gone through the seat of my pants, so baggy were they, with no ass to fill them.

What I envied most on Judy's person, though, was the LINE across the front of her shirt. That's what it looked like to me—where her breasts pushed out the fabric of whatever she was
wearing—it made a “line” and I had no line—I had nothing but a shirt full of uninterrupted flat. Topographically speaking, Judy was the Hill Country and I was the wretched Delta. (Flat land makes me crazy to this very day.)

Frenzied by Envy

I can remember trying on her bras back then—which naturally hung freely off my body as if I had donned a barrel. I would literally tie it in knots until I could make it touch my body and then I would stuff the cotton cups with what was probably the earliest form of primitive breast augmentation—toilet paper. There was no such thing as a padded bra then—it was strictly BYOB (boobs).

Bras were 100 percent cotton, straps and all. This meant one wrong move and your bra strap was gonna snap like a twig and one bosom was headed south. There was even a joke about it—based on a cigarette ad. Lucky Strike was a popular brand of cancer stick back then and on the side of the packs were the letters “LSMFT,” which supposedly stood for “Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.” The not-exactly side-splitting joke was “Loose Strap Means Floppy Titty.” It was a HUGE hit with the ten-year-old-boy circuit in 1962. Lemme tell you, they would bust a gut over it.

The cotton cups were made into their bizarre conical shape
by stitching that went round and round in concentric circles. I don't know how they came to select the cone as the shape—as long as I've lived, I have yet to see a cone-shaped tit, but that's what they were—cone-shaped. And even if you had actual tit-shaped tits to put in them, you ended up with a pointy profile.

I remember my grandmother—on Mama's side, of course—telling me that in the REAL “early days,” a LADY wouldn't be caught DEAD in a bra—only a WHORE would go around “with herself all stuck out like that.” It was simply “not done.” Much more “ladylike” to go around with oneself all hanging down around one's waist, I suppose. All I can say is, Daddy's mama musta been considered QUITE a lady then, by those standards. I don't think she ever owned a bra, and if she did, she needed a serious consult with a Foundations Specialist.

Anyway, when I was prepubescent, there were only two options for grown-up underendowed women. They could either use toilet paper, as I said, or they could wear “falsies.” Falsies were foam-rubber freestanding fake tits and they had nipples and everything. Oh, they weren't COLORED like nipples, just shaped like 'em. It was interesting to me that they made the falsies tit-shaped and not conical—indicating that at least 3 in the industry knew what a tit was supposed to look like—but it sure did take 'em a LONG time to make bra cups that were actually shaped like the body parts intended to go in 'em. It's kinda like, what if they'd starting out making athletic supporters SQUARE or something, and then thirty or forty
years later, somebody noticed that the male genitalia was not, in fact, cubical.

So Many Years, So Little Progress

After a time, somebody did finally invent the padded bra, but here again we find an instance of They Just Didn't Think It Through. The cups were pretty sturdy—more stiff like Styrofoam containers than mooshy in an authentic bosomy kind of way. Queen Sue was herself underendowed in the breastal region and she hailed the advent of the padded bra like it was, well, not the Second Coming because they had never come the first time in her experience; it was like Christmas came to her torso, and she was pret-ty excited about it. She was especially excited about her new one-piece blue-knit swimsuit with the built-in boob facsimiles.

She bought it especially to wear on a first date with a cute boy she met at junior college. They doubled with another couple and went to the beach for the day. They were lying on the sand, talking, doing a lot of deep staring into each other's eyes, and presently she somehow came to the realization that if and when she was to roll over onto her back, her new blue swimsuit ta-tas were gonna be all sunk in on account of there was nothing behind that swimsuit but your basic chest wall.

She didn't hear a word that boy said the rest of the afternoon;
all she could think about was her squashed make-believes and her crispy-fried back. Finally, the others all seemed to be distracted with something and she seized the opportunity to grab her beach cover-up and complete some kind of crawlin'-on-your-belly-like-a-rep-tile kinda maneuver whereby she successfully facilitated the concealment of the evidence of her fakery. Oh, how she wished for something to stuff that bra with.

I imagine that she briefly considered trying to writhe around and somehow surreptitiously scoop up sand with it, but, I further imagine, she wisely surmised that while the scooping itself might be accomplished on the sly, the wriggling motion necessary to the process would no doubt be widely noticed by and commented on by not just her own company but probably everyone else on the beach as well. And even if she managed to fill the cups with sand, there would have been the whole sands-through-the-hourglass effect as she sat up and they emptied of their own accord. It's best she didn't think of trying it.

There are, of course, many, many other augmentation techniques available to us today—from actual on-the-premises aftermarket installations to soft-shelled padded bras to the latest version of falsies—what Bailey calls “sticky boobs”—but as we shall soon see, they all pretty much migrate, same as the oldtimey ones.

Sticky boobs come two ways—the first way, it's really just a strapless bra. The boobs are made of some kind of viscous rubbery substance and they are connected to each other in the
front. You can stick these things to your body and they will stay there pretty much all day as long as you don't sweat much. One of the Queens—Tammy—thought sticky boobs were her ticket to braless freedom forevermore. Until we were working on the Parade float and she got hot and they fell out from under her sweatshirt and lay there quivering in the sawdust and glitter on the floor of George's barn. We didn't laugh TOO much. Far better for it to happen there than in her professional workplace—which, suffice it to say, is fairly public in nature. She's got enough to live down as it is.