Southern Belles and red rings

Here it is, Christmas Story #2.

This story skips ahead a few years to when I was 7. Dad had been in Korea for a year and came home right before Christmas. Before he got home, we packed up all of our belongings (well, the Army people did) and Justin, Mom and I moved into Grandma’s for a few weeks so that once dad got home we could move to Washington. This was exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I was really excited to get to live with Grandma for a little bit, and moving was always neat, and we were going to get to see the Grand Canyon on the way to Washington, AND, Daddy was going to be home. All very exciting. The terrifying bit came into play because Justin told me that Washington was a Yankee state, and I was personally terrified of Yankees. All I knew about them was that they marched into Atlanta, burned it up and made Scarlet wear ugly dresses and eat dirt. I did not want anything to do with them, or the way they spoke too fast and loud, chewed their food with their mouths open, talked with their mouths full, ate with their elbows on the table, never said “excuse me” and were just generally rude. All of these “misconceptions” were Mom’s fault for two reasons: she let me watch WAY too much Gone With the Wind and she would tell me that Yankees did the opposite of whatever she wanted me to do (very helpful when teaching me manners).
So anyway, we’re staying at Grandma’s house in Cusseta GA and mom went and got Daddy from the airport and for Christmas/Homecoming present he gave me a pair of beautiful RED ROPERS. They were marvelous. I’m pretty sure I wanted to sleep in them, and when I couldn’t there were tears involved. Dad also made me a red belt to match my red ropers, and the belt had my name on the back, in silver! I thought I was something to look at. I was so excited.
This is also the Christmas that I acquired, via a rescue from my cousin, Hurt Head. Hurt Head is a baby doll that was in a box of hand-me-downs from my older cousin. She is named such because something in the box dug into her head and caused it to crack. Thus giving her a hurt head, thus the name Hurt Head. (Yes, that is what I call her, even now, because, that’s her name, and you do go changing people’s names!)
Back to the red ropers…a few days after Christmas it snowed! I went outside to join my brother in a snowball fight, only to find that my lovely red ropers left horrible red rings in the snow everywhere I walked. Daddy made me come inside and take off my beautiful boots so that all of the color wouldn’t fade off. He had to re-dye them and seal them before I was allowed to wear them again.
I wore those ropers the entire way to Washington, because, well, Yankee’s just don’t have shoes like those.