The superintendent said, “No.”
Mom said, “Want to bet?”
In the 1950s, our school district, like so many others, had a strict dress code. Girls were required to wear dresses to school. No exceptions.
I liked wearing dresses, so that was fine — at least until winter came.
The school bus would not drive down our long driveway, so Monty and I had to walk out to the highway and wait for it to pick us up.
We had to make sure we got there first. If we missed the bus, we missed a day of school. We had only one car, and Dad took it to work.
Sometimes the wait stretched to fifteen or twenty minutes if the roads were icy or snowy and the bus was delayed.
In the worst part of winter, there was often severe cold and deep snow. One time, the wind was so fierce that Monty and I ducked into a snow cave that had formed along the drift just to get out of the wind.
Another time, the snow completely filled our driveway to the tops of the fence posts. Then a thick crust formed on top, and we had to walk across it to reach the highway.
I had several pairs of corduroy slacks, so Mom started putting them on me under my dress, with instructions to take them off and leave them with my coat and boots when I got to school.
The first day I wore them, Mrs. Clawson quietly and gently told me it was against the rules and that I shouldn’t do it again.
I told Mom when I got home that afternoon.
She didn’t say much to me about it, but she called the district superintendent. She explained that I would continue wearing slacks to school, but that I would remove them once I arrived in order to comply with school rules.
He didn’t like that at all.
He told her that once I stepped onto the school bus, school rules applied — and that I had to follow them.
Mom didn’t think so.
She explained about our walk to the highway, the long waits in the cold, and the winter weather. Then she told him that I would continue wearing slacks to school — whether he liked it or not.
I’m sure he didn’t like it.
But no one ever told me I couldn’t wear them again.
I continued wearing them until the weather warmed up, and I kept doing so as long as we lived there.
Mom didn’t brook any nonsense when it came to her kids. She didn’t start fights, but she always finished them.
Through My Eyes, Gently 