1946...”The VOICE” and the “Bobby Soxer”

In 1946 my sister Barbara was 17, a senior in High School and a typical teenager. We lived in the Boston suburbs.

It was also at this time that Frank Sinatra , “The Voice”, was fast becoming a teen-age idol. Barbara and her schoolmates were “Bobby Soxers” ... wearing the universal attire of all Frank’s young fans ... the poodle skirt and the socks rolled down to the ankles. (As an aside, I believe this is where the term “sock hop” comes from, meaning a dance, usually at the High School gym, where the girls took off their shoes and danced in their socks.)

Sinatra fever was running very high on the East Coast and one day Barbara and her friends were in a frenzy because they heard that he would be appearing in Boston soon. The fly in the ointment was that it was a one day “gig” and that day was in the middle of the school week. Not to be deterred ... the girls put their heads together and soon a plan was hatched.

On the day of Frank’s appearance over a third of the senior class females in our small High School were home “sick”. It must have been a 24 hr flu because all the girls were back in school the next day ... complete with forged excuse notes. The Principal was at a loss. He hated to call them liars so he just decided to let it drop.

It would have been a perfect plan but ... the same afternoon that the girls returned to school “cured” the Boston Globe ran a front page picture of Frank’s concert. The picture was taken from the stage and showed the back of Frank crooning into a microphone and the first few rows of his adoring fans!

Yes, you guessed it ... there they were with Barbara in the center.
Busted in black and white. !!