I've never been much of a "clothes horse" and the idea of fashion has always eluded me. At this age and time of life I don't much care if anything matches or not. In fact, if I make it out of the house with two socks that match I figure I've had a pretty good day. I wasn't always like this. I used to care....no really, I did care. Money was always so tight growing up though that we never got to shop for the latest fashions. We always got to shop for whatever happened to be on sale at the time. I'm not complaining mind you. I was never arrested for going out in public nekkid...as we say here in Texas, but unless an up to date shirt, jean, or shoe was on sale we weren't going to be getting it. I totally understand that now after raising two boys who grew out of their clothes every twenty-four hours or so, but I sure didn't understand it then.
Another confusing thing about those formative years and the pressure of "being in style" was that the style was based on region. If you drove to another county or state your stylin' outfit or haircut might be totally out of style. It was a conundrum. (I always wanted to use that word but couldn't come up with a way to insert it into a short story.)
Here in the happy kingdom of 1950-early 60's Hurst, Texas we were all pretty much even as far as clothes went. If you were in elementary school you wore a plaid, button-down shirt, tails tucked in until first recess, Sears Roebuck "Foremost" jeans with padded knees, and whatever black or white tennis shoes happened to be on the shelf. The hair style was "little boy haircut" at the start of the school year, neatly combed...again, until first recess. When spring approached we would all slowly transition into a flat-top or crew-cut. If your dad had a military background you generally got the crew-cut. Although my dad was a veteran of two wars he let Glenn and me get flat-tops. I don't know why. I don't even know why we were so insistent on flat-tops over crew-cuts. Dorky is dorky. Anyway, our first spring time flat-top was an interesting thing to see. Really, really white skin bordered the hairline all the way around the head. After a few weeks in the sun that problem disappeared but as any stylin' boy back then knew, if you're gonna have a flat-top you have to gob it down with Butch Wax. Butch Wax helped maintain that flat head look we all wanted so badly. Without Butch Wax your hair just looked like a crew-cut in need of cutting. As spring turned into summer the Butch Wax would begin to melt on our heads and run down our necks and into our eyes. It was a wonderful road to manhood.
My world was rocked during the sixth grade. Fashions began to tweak and all of a sudden Foremost jeans were not the thing to wear. Levi's took the lead in boys fashion. Another change was in footwear. Plain old tennis shoes were slowly being pushed aside for something called "Hush Puppies". I kid you not. My family didn't get the memo about the fashion adjustments before our annual shopping for school clothes. We picked out our Foremost jeans and black tennis shoes in good faith. Our hair was mostly grown out for the start of school and we walked in fully confident we would match everyone else. Being young and stupid can be a nice thing. We didn't realize we didn't match the trendsetters until it was brought to our attention by caring friends. "Hey! Look at the loser in the Foremost jeans!" "Where'd you pick up those PF Flyers dude?" Midways through the school year I was ready to ask for new clothes for Christmas. I didn't of course because I was still immature enough to know that it was no fun unwrapping clothes for Christmas. However, I did get a break after Christmas. We were planning our move to New Mexico which included packing our clothes. My mom mentioned to my dad that my tennis shoes were getting too small for me and all my jeans were too short, like I was preparing to wade in high water. He was making trips to and from Roswell on a regular basis and didn't have much time for those details. He told her to go ahead and get me a new pair of shoes but the jeans would have to do til summer. I told my mom I didn't want anymore tennis shoes. I wanted Hush Puppies. She looked at me like she didn't know who I was and said I would just have to wait "til your Daddy gets back from Roswell!"
When he came back from his trip she told him of my rebelliousness. She insisted he use some of his precious few hours at home to take me shopping. I figured I was a dead man walking but he took it pretty good. As we shopped I mentioned my blue jean malady and he listened. We looked at Levi's until he saw how much more they cost over the Sears brand. If I wanted Levi's I would have to buy them myself. Not much chance of that happening with my quarter a week allowance so I said I would just keep the "high waters" I already had. We got to the shoe department and I told him I wanted to wear Hush Puppies like everyone else. Again, he listened and actually walked over to the display. When he saw the prices he almost stroked out. The clerk told him Sears had come up with a close substitute for Hush Puppies at a fraction of the price. He then showed us the Sears "Gophers". Now I have to say it was really hard to tell the difference between the two brands so I didn't balk when the clerk started to measure my foot. Evidently I wore a size that was so odd Sears didn't want to bother with it, or everyone on the planet wore the same exact size and Sears couldn't keep enough of them in stock. Either way, it looked like they wouldn't be able to fit me in the Gophers. I had almost convinced my dad to reconsider the Hush Puppies when the clerk came running from the back with one more pair of Gophers he had found. Low and behold they were a perfect fit. That is absolutely all that was perfect about those shoes though. They were lace up instead of slip on. They weren't the stylish grey or tan sold by the better brand. Oh no no no, these were a color introduced by Sears for their Gopher brand.....pea green. Not olive green or dark green.....pea green. My dad said, "We'll take them!" I did not want to go back to school....ever...
I kept my old tennis shoes around by cutting the toes out. They weren't too uncomfortable then and nobody seemed to notice my modification. As spring neared and our move was imminent my dad called my mom and told her to go ahead and get Glenn and me sheared for the summer. He had noticed haircuts were a lot more expensive in Roswell so he wanted to avoid that extra cost. Glenn and I didn't mind. In fact, we were pretty proud to be sporting our shiny new heads before anyone else that spring.
Our move to Roswell was exciting as I've mentioned many times before but the first day at our new school was traumatic for me. First of all, when I walked into the classroom for the first time the teacher thought it would be nice to introduce me so she kept me up front with her arm around me and told everyone to give me a big welcome. The response was more of a muffled mumble than a greeting but I didn't hear it anyway. I was shocked to see that no one, absolutely no one had a flat-top or crew-cut. My white hairline began to glow red and I got so hot my Butch Wax started melting down my neck and face. Also, not one guy in the room was wearing a plaid button down short sleeved shirt. The room was filled with baseball jerseys, nice sweaters, or long sleeved solids with the arms rolled up and the tails hanging out. My thought was "Get me to a desk in the back right now so I can be invisible. That didn't happen. My new teacher told me there were no more desks available and I would have to sit at her desk for a couple of days until a student desk could be transferred in. So, there I sat staring at a room full of strangers. My new flat-top glowed, my high waters showed everyone how white my legs were above my probably mismatched socks, and then of course there were my pea green Gophers. My first day of school in Roswell was not a good day....not a good day indeed.
I made friends of course and eventually loved living in Roswell. Something strange happened during our short stay though. My feet didn't grow at all. Those pea green Gophers were a bane to my confidence the whole time we lived out there and then I had to wear them back to Texas to experience junior high as a new student...wearing worn out Gophers from Sears.
