Another ugga wugg memory

by chuckofish

“Well, one afternoon I was supposed to be taking care of Sonny while Mother was out shopping. He couldn’t have been older than three or four at the most. I was about ten. Well, we had a big fight about something, I forget what it was about, but Sonny got so mad he packed a suitcase and ran away. He was always running away. When Mother came home from shopping a few hours later, she found him in the lobby. He was dressed from head to toe in his Indian costume, long feather headdress and all. He said, ‘Mother, I’m running away, but I stayed to say good-bye to you.’

“When she unpacked his suitcase, it was full of toy soldiers.”

(Story told about J.D. Salinger by his sister Doris in “Dream Catcher” by Margaret Salinger)

I cannot tell you how much I love this story. What would you give to see a picture of little J.D. (Sonny) dressed in his Indian costume with full feather headdress?

Well, the best I could do is show you a picture of daughter #1 wearing the Indian costume that my mother made for me when I was in the first grade and we played the Indians in a school production of Peter Pan. Unfortunately, although I searched high and low, I could not find the picture! But I did find the dress!

All the mothers made the costumes for their own daughters, so you can imagine they varied quite a lot according to the skill level of each mama. Not surprisingly, some were store-bought and pretty fancy. I seem to remember some glitter in there too. Mine had real leather fringe and hand-beaded trim.

My older brother even strung me a bead necklace to wear with the dress. My mother, of course, went for authenticity and made the costume brown, unlike some mothers who went for “cute”. There was much diversity of headbands, I recall–some definitely leaning to the “tiara”.

Come to think of it, I would like to see a picture of those first grade Indian maidens, wouldn’t you?