By 7:30 a.m. she'd roused, fed, brown-bagged and launched three kids to school. After doing dishes, laundry and vacuuming, she'll walk to market, buy food, return to pot a supper. Then bathe, don waitress uniform, bus to downtown Camden for work (noon to 8 p.m., six days/ week). Home by 9, abed by midnight.
But today was special. Mary won't mind the chill walk to market because she'll wear a new coat that's sure to: 1) dazzle men, 2) make women envious. The calf-length "fake fur" is jet-black wool and polyester, except for silver collar trim.
Headgear: a silk babushka (Cold-War chic). From a distance (minimum: 150 yards), Mary's new coat could be mistaken for mink with silver- fox collar. Heavy as a buffalo robe, she'd had to wait for November's first mean chill to dazzle the locals. Instead of walking 15 minutes to Acme market, she'll go 25 minutes in the opposite direction to Gaspari's Italian grocery — via our burg's main intersection.
In her mid-40s but looking 30ish, Mary Duffy's Irish good looks, smiling eyes and hard-working
WHEN: Autumn 1960
WHERE: Pennsauken, NJ
WHO: Mary Duffy, mom of 3
WHAT: Dazzling the locals
ways earn her enough tips at one of Camden's
best restaurants to support herself and three kids. Rented flat, no car, and none of her kids' peers had working moms — yet the Duffys were rich with love, discipline (pre-Vat-II Catholic school), and the Irish knack for laughing at life's predicaments.
Even before launching kids to school, Mary had her new coat splayed back-down on sofa near the door so she could don and exit quickly after finishing post-breakfast chores. No need to view her coated self in mirror as she'd done that often since buying. Today was D-Day (as in knock 'em Dead). Towing her two-wheel, wire-cage grocery cart, the walk to Gaspari's placed Mom on the sidewalk of Main St. as the beeping horns of passing cars confirmed her fantasy: "They dig my coat," she murmured, feigning nonchalance.
One guy even waved out the driver's-side window. "Did he flip me the bird?" she wondered, doubting her eyesight. Fellow shoppers inside Gaspari's gawked as she passed, causing Mary to realize she'd underestimated her own good taste. Fake-fur or not, she was turning heads like Grace Kelly (another Irish-American beauty). More of the same during the walk home, cart filled with fixings for the spaghetti her latchkey kids would have for supper.
Even though she had scant time left to make spaghetti sauce, bathe, dress, then catch the 11:15 bus to work; on arriving with groceries Mary had to view herself in the coat-that- dazzled. Face aglow from adulation and November's chill, she preened before the living-room mirror like Scarlett O'Hara, whirling 45° right, then left to admire a still-young profile. "Not bad for a mother of three," she beamed. About to remove the day's source of joy, she noticed a tiny fleck of color on what she could see of the coat's back, over her right shoulder. "Is that bird-doo!" she feared.
Turning back to mirror, she saw spread, shoulder to shouder, the dayglow car bumper-sticker son Frankie brought home two days prior — whining 'cause the Duffys had neither car nor bumper on which to attach. It shouted in 3-inch neon letters on a black field:
