Jimmy Buffet song that goes something like this, "now that I'm older I don't wear underwear, I don't go to church, and I don't cut my ha" Did you ever do something as a child that the kid in you desperately wanted to keep a secret, but as an adult you realized it was just too good to hide? If you never have you will understand when I am done. It's interesting that when we are young, we care what others think of us to the point it's not really realistic or sustainable. But these days I feel the exact opposite. I am not above wearing a tee shirt in a public place that is so tattered it should have already been made into rags years ago or sporting that hard souled house shoe on a trip to the post office. If it wasn't meant to be worn in public, why did they make it that way? These days I am often taken back to that old Jimmy Buffet song that goes something like this, "now that I'm older I don't wear underwear, I don't go to church, and I don't cut my hair." Not all of these apply to me, but it makes me laugh, nonetheless. Not all of these apply to me, but it makes me laugh nonetheless. Jimmy Buffet song that goes something like this, "now that I'm older I don't wear underwear, I don't go to church, and I don't cut my ha"
The fall just before fourth grade mom took me school clothes shopping in the big city like she did every year. And God love her for it, because I'm pretty certain there were times, she probably just didn't have the money to do so, although she somehow always figured out a way. Now, back in those days the big item for boys (coat wise) were the NFL jackets with the emblem of your favorite team sewed on the upper left-hand pocket. Mine just happened to the Chicago Bears. Of course, all the fashion at that time circa 1977ish was horrible. Everything looked as though it had fallen straight out of the sitcom Three is Company. Think of it a bit like a letterman's jacket made for boys in grade school. They looked okay, but like anything made in China they were under quality and overpriced. While in the store (I want to say it was JC Penny) which come to think of it may now be defunct, something caught my eye. I saw a mock fur coat made for young men, and right away the wheels in my young brain started to spin like a Tilt-a-Whirl at the state fair.
I figured the only way to up the ante with my friend's football-wise was harken back to the very first Superbowl in 1969 and copycat Joe Namath. So, I proceeded to beg mom to buy said coat. I figured I'd be a trend setter in my hometown and maybe even bring back a little of the roaring twenties in the process. Well, I may be giving myself a little too much credit in that I probably didn't put that much real thought into the purchase. All I knew was that for some reason I just had to have one. We have all been there haven't we, the purchase you just don't think you can live without? To mom's credit before the purchase, she paused more than once and asked me inquisitively, "are you sure about this?" Mom (as usual) had the foresight to see beforehand just how this was going to go, and it wasn't going to be pretty. There is nothing in the world more brutally honest than ten-year-old boys.
The first day of fourth grade I slipped on my new fur coat with beaming pride and the heart of a gridiron hero and headed for the bus stop like a champ. Little did I know at the time that only one half of one percent of ball players make it to the NFL and I couldn't throw a tight spiral pass like Joe, or score touchdowns like Walter Peyton. At that point I wasn't even qualified to be a water boy. Looking back on it now, I realize studs that play in the major leagues tend to get a pass on wearing things that other just cannot pull off. It's as if the talent they possess gives them a pass to be, well let's be polite and use the word unconventional. I mean, it's probably the same reason jocks such as Joe Burrow can get by with wearing floral pattern suits and Tom Brady can pull off wearing Uggs, which my grandpa by the way would have no doubt called ladies shoes. Okay, where was I before my mind wandered? Oh yes, the bus stop. I probably don't have to spell out for you the fact that things didn't go well with my pals, and it wasn't because any of them belonged to PETA. I remember my old pal James even saying to me, "are you crazy, you could have gotten your ass beat showing up to school looking like that man!" Ah, you got to love the 70's.
So, feeling low because my fashion choice just didn't work out, from that day forward I just put on a light jacket under the fur coat and every day as I left the house to go to the bus stop, I would drop the fur coat behind the hedge in the front yard and then put it back on before I walked back in the house when I came home from school. This gave mom the illusion that I had been wearing it all day. I felt badly because I knew mom had spent her hard-earned money to buy the coat, all I knew was I'd sooner be dead than to be ridiculed like that again. So, the hedge routine was my only routine for most of the winter. That was until the day mom was out watering and found it. To this day (to her credit) I still don't know where that coat ended up, to my memory and her credit she never even brought it up again. I guess she figured I had suffered enough. If there is any justice in this world that coat is at the bottom of a land fill somewhere rotting. The moral of the story is simple one, never take fashion advice from a ten-year-old.
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