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Judging from my Dorothy Hamill haircut, it was taken in the summer of 1977.

My sister is wearing a bombshell (for a 7 year old) black velvet 50's party dress (I shudder to think there was a designer label inside), and the other two girls are in pretty pink floral party dresses.

Me? I chose the secretary look. Not a sexy (for a 9 year old) secretary look. It was more the look of the secretary who has been with the firm for 50 years and secretly scares everyone because she knows all their dirt. Red skirt, white blouse with a high ruffled neck and a pink cardigan. In July. Yeesh.

We had found the clothes at a 4th of July Rummage Sale in Standish, Maine. $1.00 a bag. It on a lawn in the village (I CLEARLY remember it Nancy!). *My sister swears it was held in the fire barn, but that was a later, not so good, rummage sale. (We also disagree about who caught that bluefish at Cape May in the early 70's (Nancy just because I handed the pole over to you after it bit doesn't mean you caught it!)].

At the age of 9, I didn't "get" vintage clothing, I just knew we found some cool dressup. But I remember peplums and velvet and chiffon, and my mother and our neighbor going on about the old clothes. We kept them in a tent outside of the house and put on a fashion show at the end of the summer to raise money for ice cream.

And then they got mildewed or filled with bugs and my mother tossed them all. Those clothes, along with my 1970's Matchbox cars and my dad's 1950's baseball cards, are pretty much the only thing she ever threw out.