The Icebreaker Game for Children

     This was the first week of school for my children in Chicago.  Parents and children alike were anxious and excited about returning to school after a long summer break.  Many educators and administrators were also excited about returning back to work ,especially if you were an  employee who managed to dodge the furlough pool this time around.  The bus drivers, attend clerks, secretaries, office mangers and cafeteria workers were all in their first week new attire accompanied by polished buses, tables, chairs, hallways and whiteboards.  This week in Chicago was education at its finest.
       New students were nervous about their new surroundings and classmates.  Being a new student, my niece participated in a classroom game of "Icebreaker".  She had to tell the class some interesting facts about herself.  She said the most unusual question was her favorite item of clothing.  That made me reminisce about my favorite item of clothing.
       Now those of  you who know me might think it would be a designer item or handbag, it's not.  My favorite item of clothing was a sunny bright yellow skirt that I made in the tenth grade.  Just thinking about that skirt makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.  I took a Home Economics class and one of our assignments was to make a skirt.
      I remember my grandmother taking me to the fabric store in the local mall.  I walked down aisle upon aisle of fabrics, touching and smelling the fabrics as I went along. The textures were silky, grainy, smooth and perforated.  They smelled of ink, paper, butter and bleach.  I remember going down what seemed to be the seventh aisle.  I saw this beaming bright yellow fabric shinning like the sun.  I quickly ran to the fabric, rubbed and smelled it.  It felt like  cotton balls and smelled like freshly laundered linen.  I had to get this fabric.
      I ran over to the pattern catalog and quickly picked a Butterick pattern.  For the next two days, I traced, sewed and made button holes and a zipper for the skirt.  That was my first love  with fashion.  And of course, I wore a flip hairstyle to go with it.