“She bought me a bra that you blow up...”

94-year-old Betty Jenkins remembers a gift from her mother.

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Recorded in Cincinnati, OH

Credits

Produced by Nadia Reiman.

Facilitated by Michelle Swinehart.

Transcript

Click here to read the transcript for this story.

Interview transcript

BJ: I was very skinny and I didn't have any curves. I guess my mother got kind of worried because she didn't think I had enough boyfriends. So she bought me a bra that you blow up. I was real excited, so I blew and blew till about 32. I was quite happy with the looks. I got a few wolf whistles. Of course, at that age you're very self conscious. That year I took a trip to South America. I proceeded to fly to Santiago. Soon we were into the Andes mountains, and it turned out that it was a non-pressurized plane. And I felt very uncomfortable. Things were getting very tight. This bra had started to increase in size. As the thing got bigger, I tried to stand up and I couldn't see my feet. The directions said it would go to 48 if I wanted it to. I thought what would happen if it goes beyond 48. And I found out what happened. It blew out. It was a loud resounding sound and the co-pilot came into the cabin with the gun wondering what had happened. The men all pointed to me. Well it's difficult to explain to people in English that part of your anatomy just blew up, but to try to do it in Spanish it's beyond hope. So they made a landing. I was taken off the plane and turned over to two women police. And they told me to strip, hunting for what they thought was the bomb. When I stripped down, I showed them the hole in the bra and they chuckled, and I thought, oh my, they've gotten the point and I was allowed back on the plane. A month later, I got a bill from the airline for four hundred dollars for an unscheduled stop.