Dimples
Last night’s waitress brought back a memory from over 50 years ago.
She had a wondrous set.
Of Dimples.
I was around ten years old when it finally dawned on me that I might not actually be the most beautiful child that had ever appeared on the planet.
I had an inkling of that reality a few years before, when I was in a play at the Girls’ Club where the little girls were divided into two groups – dolls and orphans (“Orphan Envy”). And I was an orphan.
But that was only the drama teacher’s opinion. Perhaps I was just not her type.
But I thought about it a lot over the next two years. I thought especially about the little girl (I think her name was Gloria) who had played the lead doll. She looked sort of like this:
Not the actual Gloria. Just a photo I found on a grandmother’s brag blog. But exactly what I remember.
Where as you may recall, I looked like this:
Not from Grandma’s brag blog.
But the more I looked at the grown-ups around me, the less worried I became.
I knew from “Father Knows Best”, for example, that people got prettier as they got older. After all, Kathy Anderson looked like this:
No offense, Kathy, but you won’t get to play a doll at the Bristol Girl’s Club.
Whereas, her sister Betty – who shared all the same genes, and I’m sure looked just like Kathy when she was a little kid – looked like this:
Betty Anderson, my 1960 beauty icon.
And I knew from watching my mother how that happened. I knew that as soon as I was old enough, and possessed some money, I could have blond curls just like Gloria – and I had every intention of having them. And I could have well-shaped eyebrows (instead of fuzzy-wuzzy caterpillars) as soon as I could figure out the tweezers. And I was already working on that.
And I was confident that the dark long eyelashes would come from the same place that pink cheeks and red lips came from.
Makeup is God’s gift to homely girls.
With lipstick and rouge (that’s what they called blusher back then) and mascara and tweezers and hair dye and perms and hairspray being the great equalizers, I knew I was just a few years away from being just as pretty as Gloria.
So that left Gloria with only one trait that I coveted.
Dimples.
I could acquire everything that Gloria had, except dimples.
But I was determined to get me some.
So every night for four months I went to bed with my fingers in my cheeks.
And it would have worked, I’m sure, if only I could have stayed awake longer. Or learned to sleep with my fingers in place.
Now that I am older and have gotten a good look at my husbands tool box, I see that what I really needed was a good set of calipers.
Just as well, though, because I have a feeling that when you get older those dimples can get pretty droopy.
Gloria, 2012.
Too bad, Gloria, that you now look a little like a basset hound, whereas my cheeks are still nice and smooth (and round).
- Posted in: Aging ♦ Beauty ♦ Humor ♦ Memories ♦ Style ♦ Television
- Tagged: Aging, beauty, Childhood Memories, dimples, Father Knows Best, humor. cosmetics
notquiteold 
LOL! I don’t have Dimples, and neither does anyone else in our family that we know of, but our daughter does. I promise I didn’t use calipers on her when she was a baby.
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Maybe little tiny ones?
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I’ll never tell 😉
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I have one dimpled cheek and one non-dimpled cheek. I could never do anything all the way.
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Me, too!
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I think the asymmetrical look is awfully cute. Part your hair on the other side.
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I would have been happy with one.
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You mean I should just put it all over my face?
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oh, i have dimples all right. fortunately – not from calipers. unfortunately, not on my face.
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oh. sorry.
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This brought back a memory. As a child, I went to sleep every night trying to squeeze my two front teeth together so I wouldn’t have a gap. That’s what good writing does–it helps the reader remember something from their own life. Thanks.
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My husband has dimples, they are lovely. I have no dimples, I never mourned not having them. I wore braces, for years I would not smile. I had dark straight hair, at 12 I dyed it candy apple red. Well that is the color I wanted anyway, it isn’t the color I got.
Weird, poor girls never quite happy. Personally I think you were adorable!
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Wow, hair dye at 12! I did makeup at 12, but had to wait until 18 for the dye. Even if it was a very odd color, I am still jealous.
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I too thought Kitten needed a little work, and must have hated that her sister was so beautiful..And something tells me she didn’t get better with age. As for dimples – I’ve got them and gravity hasn’t taken them where it has taken other parts of my body without my permission..
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I’m glad your dimples have stayed in place. I can only hope that Gloria’s did not.
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ha ha – I wanted dimples too when I was a kid
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And your pic when you were little is super adorable–cuter than any Gloria could have been
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That is my cutest picture. I will have to look through my Mom’s stuff for a photo than better shows what I unfortunately looked like. She has a ton of them.
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I used to look quite ridiculous as my smile was so big you could not see anything else
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Hmmm… I’ll have to ask Motor Man if he knew you could use calipers to create dimples ….??
Thanks for the early morning smile!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
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My husband and subsequently my daughter and granddaughter have dimples on the back of each shoulder. Very cute on little girls in sleeveless tops and on them as adults too. And, on my husband, just adorable. :>)
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I have never heard of that! Now I want me some!
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I wanted to be pretty when I was a little girl, but freckles, snaggleteeth, and hand-me-downs from my aunts left me firmly in Orphan camp.
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Ah, but I wanted freckles too. I thought they were so cute! Now I have age spots. Not so much.
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I love your nasty streak! Makes me laugh every time!
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Dimples? By the time I was 12-ish I wanted boobs! Never did get them until I was 60 and the little bit started to stetch and droop!
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I’m still waiting for boobs.
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I love how a child’s mind works to find a solution. Sticking your fingers in your cheeks as you slept is adorable. Kids don’t think like that now. They would be asking there mother to take them to the plastic surgeon so they could play a “doll” in the play.
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HAHAHAHAHA! Gloria 2012!
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So dimples on the face good, dimples on the thighs however…
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Blahahaha! Once again, hilarious. I have a dimple (just one) in my knee. At least I used to. Does that count?
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Sorry to break it to you – Gloria’s dimples still look great. But you look even better!
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Your pictures are so cute! And I love your posts! (ps : I got dimples and a tongue-in-cheek humor… coincidence? I don’t think so :))
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Okay, first of all, you were adorable as a kid! Cute as can be. I remember looking at pictures of cutie-patooties like you and lathering my skin in Noxemia “skin lightener” in hopes to bleach my skin white because nobody on TV, in the magazines, or on the billboards looked like me. Ha! Glad the skin bleacher didn’t work. I think God made the different skin colors and dimpled/non-dimpled for a reason. We make a nice assorted bouquet of beautiful faces in the end. Delightful post. Cheers!
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You are so funny and talented, you don’t need dimples.
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Thanks… but oh how dimples would enhance my talent!
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