<p>7th grade girls had to take sewing and cooking. The first project in sewing was the sewing of the gym bag. A rectangle with shoelace drawstring at the top. 2nd project was to embroider your name across the bottom.
Our uniforms were white blouses that snapped with cotton elastic waist shorts. My sister was two yrs younger and she got stuck with the stretchy blue one piece gymsuit. I remember on friday lining up at the end of gym so they could check that you were bringing your gym clothes home to be washed. I also remember lining up to go into the shower area with the tiny stiff white smelly towel. We would quickly pretend to get a bit wet. You walked out of the shower area where a mean gym teacher would stare at you and decide whether she thought you had actually taken a shower. You marked your PE number on the tile wall with an X. A certain number of no showers resulted in a poor grade in the work habits and cooperation column of the report card. Like one of the previous posters I was a 100 lb weakling. Skin and bones. I could not for the life of me climb that stupid rope or do pull ups. Anyone else do the 6 minute walk/trot. You had to do a certain number of laps within the 6 minutes.
I know at my D’s jr high the water was turned off in the showers. Budget savings.</p>