I think I’ll write about something that is not a part of my personal experience. These days, that’s somewhat of a rarity, however, this actually happened before I was born. It’s something my mother and her girlfriends did during WW II.

First, it’s important to know that up until the New York World’s Fair of 1940, women still wore silk stockings with a seam running up the back of the leg. That year at the Fair, though, a new material was exhibited by the DuPont Company. Since this was its first introduction to the public, DuPont named it nylon, the “ny” stood for New York.

According to Mark Falco’s Hiistory of Nylons

…after the New York World Fair when the new miracle fiber in the form of nylon stockings hit the market on May 14th 1940. Women rushed out to buy them, not in their thousands, but in their millions!

Two years later the production of nylon stockings went on something of a hold as nylon was enrolled in helping the war effort, being used in such things as parachute and tent production.

My mother told me during the time when stockings became scarce, she and her friends became quite adept at mimicking seam lines. First they applied pancake makeup to the back of their legs. Then they drew seam lines on each others’ legs with eyebrow pencil. It took a steady hand, although my mother admitted that when she was in a hurry, she drew some pretty crooked lines. That wasn’t a terribly bad thing because the seams on nylon stockings very often became crooked after they were worn for several hours. So, unless the lines were really squiggly, they were deemed acceptable.

Since I’m composing this post from a chaise lounge, by the pool, on a ship headed for Cozumel, Mexico, my next post will be about travel.. My cruise includes stops in Belize, Freeport and Roatan, Honduras.