Miss Post Office Department 1966
I was one of those weird kids who loved school. One day, when I was 16, while at the dinner table with my family, I mentioned that I was looking forward to attending university. My dad put his fork down, looked me in the eye and said, “You are not going to university. You’re just going to get married and have babies, and we can’t afford university tuition, anyway.” Case closed. Welcome too the 1960s, girls.
Dad kept encouraging me to get a job in the government because it offered security and there were beauty contests. I did not want to work in the government and I absolutely did not want to participate in a beauty contest.
Well, as luck would have it, I did get a job in the government and then had to endure my father’s constant pushing for me to enter the stupid beauty contest. I kept putting it off, and then, on the last day before entry to the contest closed, my supervisor pushed me to go and enter. I did, and I won. I was Miss Post Office in 1966. Whoopee. My parents were ecstatic.
A few weeks after the contest, a departmental photographer came to my desk to say I was to bring a bikini to work so we could go to the beach, where I would be photographed next to the department’s new mailbox. I refused and handed over my crown and banner to the first runner-up. There was absolutely no way I was going to put on a bikini and hug a mailbox. This was the end of my Miss Post Office days. I had better things to do.
P.S. My dad and I were very close. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me and vice versa. This beauty contest was our one and only disagreement. LOL!
