Bras in Munster woman’s yard signal a happy birthday
By Mark Taylor Post-Tribune correspondent April 27, 2011 11:46AM
Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM
Elaine Craig returned home from the beauty salon the day before her 60th birthday to a shocking sight.
A clothesline was strung through the front yard of her home in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Munster. And hanging from it were — bras.
More bras than she’d ever seen outside of a Victoria’s Secret store. Twenty yards of bras in hot pink, purple, white and black. Cocktail bras and athletic bras. Raquel Welch bras and Twiggy bras.
A sign on her front lawn clued her quickly that she wasn’t stuck in a bad lingerie nightmare, but was the victim of a loving birthday prank from her cousins and aunt.
Two hand-drawn signs said “Look 60 and sexy” and “Honk Elaine is 60.”
Craig, who turned 60 Wednesday, said she had no idea her cousins Vicky Byrom of Crown Point, Mary Ann Farmer of Munster, Peggy Ficht and her daughter, Annie Ficht, both of Griffith, as well as her aunt, Margie Fowler of Hammond, had planned this underwear surprise.
“I didn’t know they were going to do this,” Craig laughed. “It’s the funniest thing.”
So where did they find 60 bras? Raid a Fredericks of Hollywood? Sneak into the locker room of a women’s volleyball team?
Farmer said her sister, Peggy Ficht, started the tradition for her 50th birthday and has maintained it, collecting bras from friends and co workers.
“They’re hand-me-downs and donated bras, the biggest, baddest and wildest bras we could find,” Ficht said. ‘We had quite the party putting them up.”
When Frank Kowal, her companion of 23 years, came home, he brought the signs inside, otherwise the heavy rain showers would have ruined them.
“When I came home and saw it I laughed hysterically,” said Craig, who retired last year as a math teacher from Hammond Morton High School with 36 years of service. “My newspaper deliverywoman couldn’t stop giggling when she handed me my paper. And one man driving past shot video of it. It’s made my day every time somebody honked.”
And honk they have. “People can’t believe it,” she said.
The postman delivering mail agreed. “Don’t take them down,” he pleaded while delivering the mail.
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