NO MORE “Miss Goody two-shoes”
I was tired of the “nice girl” image people had of me since childhood, so I set out to change it.
I attended a Catholic boys and girls high school in downtown London, Ontario, Canada. We girls wore uniforms and the boys didn’t. I often wondered why. Hmmm. Yet another way boys were treated differently than us girls.
In May 1967, I was about to attend the Grade 13 graduation prom. Mom and I were sewing my prom dress — baby blue, A-line, spaghetti straps. When I say Mom and me, it was mostly Mom. As all girls did, I took home economics in grade 9 and had made several dresses and one suit since then, but I wasn’t talented like Mom was. I never liked the niggly details of hemming so rarely finished things. I left them for Mom to do.
She’d bought me a pale blue “push-up” bra in keeping with the dress’ style.
“Why did you buy me this bra?”
“It’s sexy. How do you want to look?”
I guess she’d already decided how to change my image. Or maybe her “wild girl” was hidden deep inside her and she was letting it come out in me.
Show cleavage or not? Be seen as sexy and desirable or prim and proper? Shorter straps to show less? Longer straps to reveal more? Would I feel guilt or boldness? I waffled. Who was I?
I’ll remember the words Mom uttered that clinched my decision.
“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
I made a choice.
She was right. I wanted others to see me differently. I’d already dyed my hair blonde the summer before and had surprised people at school in September.
The day of the prom, I described my dress to the hairdresser and said, “Make me look unusual.” She added a “fall” of curls to the stunning upswept do she fashioned.
That evening when my escort picked me up, he was wowed. “You look very different from the girl I’m dating!” He energetically put the wrist corsage on me and off we went.
The buzz of insects and the musical chirping of grasshoppers filled the air of the perfect May evening. We drove in his brand-new green Camaro convertible, parked and entered the high school gym filled with anticipation. What would people think when they saw me?
I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
The other students turned and whispered to each other, wondering who I was.
We walked along a reception line of teachers who were both lay people and nuns and came to the principal, a priest. He stared with a puzzled expression, shook my hand and said, “I didn’t think that was you or that you had this in you.”
I thought, “Who did you think I was?” and answered him by saying, “Thanks.”
The dance itself was a blur. We whirled around the floor with people gossiping when they noticed me. Girls chatted with us and commented on my look. I don’t remember getting our formal picture taken, but here it is as proof.
And THAT was the beginning of changing my “goody two shoes” image.
The following year, I went from a high school of about 500 to the University of Western Ontario with 10,000 students. I could be unknown in such a large number and could continue to create a brand-new persona.
Bring on university and September 1968!
I didn’t do anything radical. London, Ontario in the 60s wasn’t like that. It was a very WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) city. In my first year, I skipped a class on purpose so I would belong; went to a party with friends and got drunk once; ran for student council of one of the colleges and in my third year moved out into an apartment but each of those is another story.
