Trolls and Tribulations
Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 05:32PM My sister and I, when we were in grade school, had a few Barbies and played with them a little, but we had many trolls and played with them a lot. We called them "iggies" and we amused ourselves for hours with those homely things. They had ugly little faces and naked bodies ... of course we made clothes for them! Well, my sister sewed clever little outfits for hers but my personal trolls, not being owned by even a ghost of a seamstress, wore garments more on the order of sarongs that could be easily fashioned from tying a scrap of cloth, cave-man style! It covered them and that was the important thing. We also used small boxes to make residences for our trolls. We cut holes for windows and doors and put rugs on their floors, and made draperies to glue at the windows so other trolls passing by on the street could not see inside our trolls' dwellings. I guess my sister's trolls and my trolls were neighbors but I don't really remember that part. All I know is, we had scads of those things, some small, some big, and I have no idea what ever happened to any of them.
I suspect that on that dark night in the fall of 1970 when we escaped my stepfather and fled our home in Florida, my 14-year-old sister driving our white '57 Chevy through the night to get to Louisiana as fast as we could (seems we were always leaving our home in the rearview mirror, bound for Baton Rouge), our trolls got left behind in our toy box. After all, in our haste to get away before my stepfather surfaced from his drunken stupor, grabbed that shotgun, and followed us into the yard, we only grabbed as many of our belongings as we could stuff into paper bags. Our trolls are likely in a landfill somewhere to this day, their earnest little plastic eyes staring up or down or sideways, their neon-bright cotton-candy hair no doubt long dissolved.
But my sister never forgot how to sew, and through the years she has reared five lovely daughters and taught all of them to sew. I can sew on a button or replace an errant sequin (I keep all the little clear packets that come with blouses and sweaters) but that's about it. I am telling you this because every now and then I am reminded of the time, about six months after we'd gotten settled in Baton Rouge, when I needed some sewing done and my sister was there for me. I was in a singing group at my school, and we had matching outfits: the girls wore "peasant" dresses in red with a white mid-section and navy blue grosgrain ribbon criss-crossed in the front to look like laces. It was very au courant! We wore them with white tights and Mary Janes; the boys echoed our look with white slacks, red shirts, and white ties.
I'm sure the dress was a relatively simple thing to sew, but if you had asked me to sew it, you might as well have asked me to recite the Gettysburg Address in Greek while dancing a minuet with a stockpot of boiling water balanced on my head. And although I'm sure we were given ample time by our teacher to secure our pattern and our fabric and our notions to make the dress in time for state competition, for some reason the night before state competition my dress was not finished yet! Although I don't specifically remember this part, I'm sure I made a big issue of this because I've always been very demanding. For some reason our mother was not home the night before the dress had to be completed, so my sister sat down at the table in our tiny kitchen and began sewing. Needing my beauty sleep, I went to bed.
The next morning I awoke to find my dress, finished, pressed and ready to wear. I put it on with my tights and Mary Janes and went to school and to the state competition, which we did not win. I'm not sure I ever said thank you to my dear sister for staying up most of the night to sew my dress ... but I've thought of what she did so many times over the years, if she had a dollar for every time I thought of it, she could buy herself something nice to wear. Something she wouldn't have to sew.
I'm in the front row (haha), fourth from the left.
Reader Comments (3)
I, too, collected troll dolls. And I actually called them "TROLL DOLLS." I still have a few in an oversized jewelry box that houses some childhood keepsakes in the attic. My brother, Russell, always tried to steal them just to make me crazy. I would, of course, go after him - with my arms and legs flying like a windmill. I was oh-so-skinny then, but my long, spidery arms and legs could be lethal with enough momentum. My favorite troll was an itty-bitty metalic gold one that come on the top of pen I begged mama to buy for me. I immediately pulled the "troll-topper" off the pen and pretended it was the sacred gold baby troll. The baby had snow white hair and as you can probably imagine, was the envy of all me friends. So when you come visit me, which I know will be soon, just maybe, I'll let you hold the baby.
I love the picture of you in your "My Sister Made It For Me Dress." And I love, love your writing. It makes me smile. It also makes me remember us in high school sitting in the park in Avondale and composing poetry by the lake. Weren't we the most starry-eyed ninnies ever?
Girl yer bringing a tear to me eye! SACRED GOLD BABY TROLL! **falls over laughing** ... invite me and I'll come see you, darling! Thanks for reading.