Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Do You Remember the Green Nail Polish?

Our waitress had an ugly blue nail polish on her finger nails. But, she doesn't have anything on women from my generation when it comes to finger polish color. You may remember a story I told you about my nail polish color choices when I started blogging.

When I was young we were as foolish with the color of our nail polish as women are today. I would never had gone for green nail polish because it was ugly when your hand came near to your mouth. It was ugly, ugly. But measures had to taken to cure my future-husband from nearly drowning me because he said he hated my red nail polish. Mine wasn't red. It was a beautiful, delicate pink color that reminded me of a daphne bush growing outside my grandmother's house when I was a child. I was wearing this lovely color on all my fingers and my toes.

Sam didn't say anything at first about my nails when he came to visit me in Warm Springs, Georgia that weekend from Fort Benning where he was in officer's candidate school. However, after we jumped in the pool together, he promptly held my head under water long enough to really scare me. This happened when we first met and he decided to fix my elegance by nearly drowning me in protest of my nail color.

Sam's mother was high-society San Franciscan and I'm sure she never wore any nail polish other than natural so in his mind that was the proper behavior for woman. I think he was afraid when I met his family that I would look cheap wearing my nail polish. But I knew I had a way of telling him that I won this battle.

When he went back to Fort Benning that Sunday, I called a good friend in New York City.

"Please send me a bottle of green nail polish. I have to do something to stop my husband from being so dictatorial about what I wear on my nails."

The package arrived on Friday and Sam arrived on Saturday. When he saw me wearing the horrible green on my finger nails and toenails, he realized I was not one to be fooled with. He said okay you win. You can wear red.

Now that I'm 95, it's wonderful when a slight detail brings back such a fond memory...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the story! So great to hear from you!

Anonymous said...

Yes, indeed! More please

Ter-o-fla said...

Great to hear from you again!
This is a very dear story.
And yes, isn't it lovely how tiny memories - or smells, or sounds, - can bring back almost-forgotten, long-ago stories?

Katherine said...

Happy, happy trails, Svensto, and may you rest in peace.

Unknown said...

Have so enjoyed reading about you and yours and will miss you very much. Rest in peace, Svensto, and blessings and peace to your family.

Charlene said...

Rest in peace, dear Svensto. Thanks for sharing your stories with us. I so enjoyed them. May your family find comfort in the memories.

kathie said...

We should all wear green nails at least once... Rest in Peace.

Alison said...

Shreve, if you are reading this, I'd like you to know how much I enjoyed reading your grandmother's posts. I have been away from Blogger for nearly 2 years, but on occasion would check to see if she had posted anything. I am saddened to hear of her passing, but at 95, I bet she was in some way, happy to move on to her next adventure. I hope you can feel the love she created in all that she did, not only in this blog, but in the actual telling of her story...something permanent and resounding for future readers to find and relish. I wish you well, and send my belated condolences to you and your family. God Bless. Alison Whitner