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Show I I Does a Davy Crockett cap go with this? And should I twirl it above the waist, below the waist, or just sell it to an elephant whos about to get engaged? Always problems. Ibn ui 0 NE BRIGHT DAY when T was six, I was reviewing my priceless collection of bottle caps, wondering whether a mint-ne'39 Moxie had more value than a 36 Dr. Pepper. Suddenly my cousin Katie came by, almost crushing a matched set of Seven Ups. w You collect bott'e caps? she said. Gee, no one has THEM any more. Now we've all got THESE. With depressing smugness, she pointed to a little plastic pin shaped like a pickle that sat on her sweater. Its one of those 57 varieties at the Wor'd's Fair, she said. The only bottle caps out there are from ketchup. And so an avant-gard- e young lady from the Heinz Pavilion had burst my great carbonated bubble. In the following days, I desperately tried to convert to pickles, once even offering 20 Cokes for just one Heinz; but the Fair was closing and no holder of pickle pins would break up his portfolio. Needless to say, the Moxie market was bearish. THIS CHILDHOOD BATH that I took in soda pop established the special rhythm of my life: for the next 30 years, from pickle pins to turtlenecks, I was always one step behind the current American fad. For example, one morning about two years after the bottom fell out of my tops, I was strolling to school in a pair of knickers whose nattiness was playing havoc with half the female hormones in the second grade. But when I reached my class on this particular day, tnv good friend Moose Face took me aside and said, Rdphie, knickers are for dopes Stallin' tomorrow were wearin em." Since Moose Pierre Cardin Three style setters nonclialcntly await the photographer rom Vogue. The natty gentleman on the right is on leave from the Beautiful People. The natty gentleman on the left must be the fashion editor of Isvestia. Studied informality is the motif. gonna step BDcSanimal stop Face was the of East 19th Street, that night I told my mother to give ail my knickers to undersized golfers. If I wanted to keep up with the beautiful pupils, I would have to put my legs into something much more fashionable. The following day, I arrived at school in a pair of white short that daringly pants revealed the strawberry mark on my upper thigh; but I was shocked to find that the style setters were all in long pants. Trapped in the chicness gap, I spent a whole geography lesson trying to cover my knees with the map of South America. NO MATTER HOW hard I try to coordinate with the times, I ways seem to look like a human When I bought my Davy Crockett cap, the country was switching to hula loops; I bought my first Elvis Presley record when he was finally being dug by Dean Acheson; and when the was smoking baked bananas, I was still ducking for apples. re-ru- One night last year, I took my wife July to a nightclub where the old Jimmy Dorsey band was digging up the '40s for a crowd of swinging anachronisms like me. As I suavely my way around the room, the trombones were purring In the Still of tfie Niftht," my GI haircut felt thrillingly right, and I had a burning desire to see a John Wayne movie. It was bourgeois intoxication; at last I was free from chasing the fads. AS THE MUSIC turned into "Stardust," Judy put her head on my padded shoulder while I pretended that she was someone from the Stage Door Canteen. She must have Iteen reading any reverie, for when the dance was she smiled at me and You, my darling are said, Americas biggest square." I'm over, you made certain adjustments since Pearl Harbor. My Willkies are gone and the NEXT to go is Dewey. And have I mentioned Kate Smith all month? Why, I even feel less of a lump whenever the flag foes by. She was right of course, as she is every year or two. I am probably the only adult west of Vienna who is now learning how to waltz; I have never tried LSD because I still get a kick out of Bufferin; until last summer, I thought that Sonny and Cher were a mutual fund; and for years I thought that underground movies were films of sandhogs. I never seem to know what movies are in. Humphrey Bogart festivals at Berkeley? Busby Berkeley festivals at Bowdoin? Stag films by Lord Snowdon? How I yearn for the days when I was certain that was digging the the seven dwarfs. All that Is promising, but you're still watching Ed Sullivan, aren't you? LOOK, YOU can't expect a guy to go cold turkey. Of course I have a way to go I mean I still get a little glow from seeing David and Julie but admit I've made some progress. You know that broken tray that I glued together last night? Well, three or four times, I took a good deep sniff of the work." Thats just what I mean: glue sniffing is out. When are you going to get WITH it? said Judy one morning a few months ago as I put on a tie that had led the way at Yale in the fall of 49. Ties like that are very big right now at Even Elmer's? It's last year's kick." Okay then, just catch these sideburns. Another inch or two and I'll lie looking as hip as Lincoln." the Library of Congress. And even librarians arent wearing tie clips any more. Your clothes look like something from a time capsule. I LIKE TO make sure there's some subslate'e to a style," I said, liefore I just run with the herd to buy it. I woilt he tricked by all the designers into buying a new wardrobe every five or 10 years just fur the sake of change. You know, if a nun doesn't keep pace with his companions, perhaps its he hears a different drummer. While I strain to stay current with the hair of the past, while I chase after styles that were chic at Bunker Hill, I wonder if the effort is really worthwhile. Might I not be wiser just to polish my Tiiam McAns and stand my ground in them? For many years, my mother and I laughed at my grandfather because he wouldnt give away a double-breaste- d suit with, windjammer lapels that he 'had worn to mourn the defeat of Herbert I loover. he said, and YOURS plays with John Philip Sousa." Yes, It just so happens, It'll come hack," he always Hoover may not. but said. keep your eye on the suit. I said, dramatically tossing my Wiltkie buttons in the trash can, that I AM getting a lot more with it. not the slave to fads that all women are, but I HAVE . HAD MY GRANDFATHER only lived to enter .this swinging. by Ralph Sclioenstein age, he could have dyed that suit chartreuse and sportingly worn it to a Union League happening. Its the cyclical nature of old gabardine that makes me pause before I pounce on every new style, before I start wearing pants that belong on a submarine or ties that look like cotton kites or jockey shorts. I gave the Nehru coat an entire year belore I surrendered and got one. If I had to go Hindu. I would rather have gone in one of Gandhis sheets, but the coat did match something already in my wardrobe: a khaki corporals cap that was all the rage at the Yokohama PX in the spring of '54. The night finally came when I found the courage to wear my Nehru to a party. There I stood, in all the glory of a Gimbels guru, when a comely young lady came up to me and said. "Oh, the Nehru coat. Do yon think theyll be coming back? Cramps h The Salt Lake I THE NEXT MORNING. went to my closet and reactivated my bankers gray. I had hapto returned fashions pily womb: the Averell Harriman look. I am now resigned to the fact that American styles will forever be changing too fast for me to shift my poor conservative gears. I am doomed to a life of chasing the Easter parade in my Christmas clothes. The answer for me is clear: to leave the race and join a nudist colony, where the turtlenecks are only on tut ties. Of course, it would be just my luck to find that the week tint I had joined, was starting to the wear their navels in another place. I (Capnht by Sunday, April 12, 1970 |