Mackinac Island, Michigan, July 1961. We've arrived at Mackinac Island, but I am not interested in the scenery.
Mom's knitting bag resembles the plaid valise Barbie carried in the early 1960s.
Suburban Chicago, December 1959. Mom and Dad steer me around the corner. The stroller became a toy after I got older; my Best Friend and I used to pile our Barbies into it and walk up and down the sidewalk on summer afternoons. The wool blanket is still in use, and it remains scratchy.
Suburban Chicago, December 24, 1964. We've finished our Kūčios meal, and I am opening gifts. The two wrappers with monograms at the lower left are from Marshall Field's (those must have been enclosed gifts for the adults). The third box in the stack behind me is a Barbie and Midge game.
Suburban Chicago, January 1965. We have friends visiting from Indiana, and their daughter and I play in the Rec Room. She's got Barbie, and the Skipper doll is at my feet. One of our neighbors—Mikey's owner—made animal figurines, and he gave us the deer that's standing between Skipper's box and Barbie's wardrobe.
Memory triggers leap from this photo. I first focus on the tchotchkes in the bookshelf's center panel. On the top shelf, at the left, stands a wooden statuette of a woman, dressed in white, holding a baby. There's an inscription at its base, "Lady Doctor." A patient carved it for my Mom. The White-brand sewing machine stands at the window so that the seamstress can have a nice view out of the window. My play table is tucked under the formica counter because we are entertaining guests. I am again wearing tights. And moccasins. Even the wall-to-wall carpet looks bright gold (less its grape-juice stain) in a black-and-white photo.
And the title of this post tells you it's really about the Beatles.
Suburban Chicago, June 1964. Our pet rabbit explores the Rec Room.
In 1967, the Chicago Sun-Times included a Funny Face Drink circular in a Sunday edition of its Comics Section. The circular promoted new flavors of the drink mix. It also included a contest entry. The contest directed children to color a Funny-Face character.
My Parents subscribed to the Chicago Tribune, so we did not get a Funny-Face Drink circular in our edition that Sunday. My Best Friend's family, however, got the Sun-Times. When her Parents saw the art contest circular, they picked up a couple of extra copies of the paper so that my Best Friend, her sister, and I all could submit our entries.
We all sat at my Best Friend's kitchen table, and we completed our entries. My Best Friend's Parents mailed the entries. Then we forgot about the contest for a few months.
I don't know whether Funny Face executives judged the entries. Perhaps the contest was only a drawing for which the company randomly selected winners from the submitted entries. I couldn't tell you if artistic talent was a factor in the contest or not.
My Best Friend was—and is—a talented artist. We believed the contest was based on artistic ability, and we were sure my Best Friend would be declared a winner.
One Tuesday afternoon, after school, a delivery man brought a big box to our house. The box was addressed to me. I was a winner of the Funny Face Drink sweepstakes. I received a wonderful prize: a modern Barbie and a Barbie Dream House.
I felt badly for my Best Friend because she was both the artist and the person who made it possible for me to submit an entry. We thought the contest had tested young talent. I was less artistic and, therefore, I did not merit the prize.
But I was very happy with my new toys. It's the only thing I've ever "won."
Suburban Chicago, 1967. Here's the Barbie (the kind with the twist waist) that caused the heartache.
UPDATE: Ah! Here's the entry form.
Older girls surrounded me when I was growing up. My Best Friend was one year older than I. Her sister was four years older than she. Other friends, with whom I attended Lithuanian (Saturday) school, were three years older than I.
Older girls had more interesting dolls. Everyone, it seemed, played with Barbie. When I was about four years old, I begged Santa Claus for a Barbie. When we opened our gifts that Christmas Eve, I was shocked and disappointed to see a "Tammy" doll, not a genuine Barbie. My Parents explained that Santa had concluded that I was not old enough for a Barbie. I was so bummed!
I attributed the arrival of Tammy to one of two things. My Parents either selected Tammy because she was less anatomically charged than Barbie, or, because they were not Americans, they didn't quite "get" the branding thing and thought that one teen doll was isomorphic to another.
Suburban Chicago, 1964. I got my Barbie! Barbie is wearing the pink gown and red velvet cape that 1960s girls will recognize. I sit on my Parents' full-sized bed. An aqua-blue chenille bedspread covers the bed. Visible on my Mom's nightstand is a rotary phone with a shoulder rest. Mom used the shoulder rest so that she could talk to patients, hands free, while she knitted.
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