George Washington’s Birthday 1969 will always be remembered as a weekend of firsts for me.

Our long weekend getaway up to the Borscht Belt was the place where I learned to ski for the very first time at 14.

It was also the day I first got my period.

Along with wearing uncomfortable leather lace-up boots, wooden skis with bear trap bindings, and bamboo poles, I was awkwardly wearing an oversized sanitary napkin and elastic belt that cut into my thighs with every ski turn. The combo was tormenting, humiliating, and enough to keep me away from skiing for another 15 years.

Luckily the technology for both issues has improved significantly.

Operation: Code Red

As we were about to leave for the weekend from my home on Long Island, I ran to the bathroom for one last time before the 3-hour car ride up to the Catskills. To my complete mortification, I saw blood spots intermingled with little pink and yellow flowers on my Carter’s underpants. Far from overjoyed, I was mortified. I was embarrassed, awkward, and unsure of what to do next.

I moved into Code Red mode.

Unable to speak the words out loud to my mother, I hastily scribbled a note to her on the inside of a torn white Bactine box explaining my womanly dilemma, imploring her to keep it top secret. This was strictly classified information, and neither my father nor my brother had security clearance.

Wadding up half a roll of toilet paper to control the bleeding I waddled down the hall and surreptitiously slipped the note under her bedroom door. I scurried back to the bathroom, locked the door, and waited obsessively counting the pink and grey tiles on the floor.

A few minutes later there was a gentle knock on the bathroom door. With the stealth quality of a dead drop, on the other side of the door lay a sealed brown paper grocery bag from A&P. Inside was a large Kotex pad likely taken from the oversized grey box that took up half the floor space in Mom’s walk-in closet.

Included was a small package containing a “comfortable” sanitary belt made “just for teens.” Had she purchased this tortuous device in advance, knowing that day would come? Or did my coupon-clipping mother see a sale on sanitary belts she couldn’t resist?

Sure three years earlier I had seen “the movie” about “Becoming a Woman” and knew all about menstruation but the practical how-to of it all was never explained.

I had read the upbeat manual we were given in class from Modess “Growing Up and Liking It.”

“The Fun is just beginning,” it claimed right off the bat.

“This is what you’ve been waiting for,” this 1966 manual gushed assuring readers that “someday when you fall in love and marry, you will want to have children.” Menstruation was “part of being female . . .part of growing up . . . part of the wonderful process of changing from a child into a woman.”

Geared to the Pepsi generation, the photos of girls were as bubbly and effervescent as a bottle of pop, and as perky as any teen in a Pepsi ad.  These happy-go-lucky gals sporting Patty Duke flips and Ship n’ Shore separates were pictured dancing,  shopping, and playing ping-pong. The girls just glowed with happiness …all because they had proper menstrual education.

“Remember your sanitary belt is as important to your protection and daintiness as your sanitary napkins.”

Tampons were not an option for well-brought-up young ladies, and pads with adhesive were still in the near future.  Until then a thick wad of cotton shielded with a blue polyethylene strip was all that stood between you and those embarrassing moments.

Hands-on Experience

I quickly discovered that attaching this bulky, elongated mass of cotton into the front and back clips of the white elastic belt that sat at your waist required the skills of a contortionist.

Fumbling and anything but “happy-go-lucky” I am certain I did not do it correctly. Despite wanting to keep it secret, the twisted outline of the “ comfortable” belt was imprinted on my Danskin stretch pants for all to see only digging in deeper over the long car ride.

Learning to ski I imagined would be a breeze after this. But it was hard to tell which was more disabling-the crippling self-consciousness I felt during ski lessons as I tripped over the wooden skis certain a red stain would bloom through my pants as I lay on my face in the snow or the first-time cramps I unsuccessfully tried to ignore.

But it was the schussing downhill with a sanitary belt  that was enough to keep me off the slopes for way over a decade.