When you live in a small community far from a larger metropolis and the urge to enjoy some entertainment comes upon you where do you go? Well there’s always the local liquor store or bar but that would require that one would enjoy the taste of alcoholic beverages. Scratch that idea.
How about the local high school to take in a high school sporting event? Bingo! That’s what we do often especially in the winter when nothing is watchable on our 200 channel television and the library book we’re reading is pretty slow moving.
Sitting eight rows up on those hard wooden bleachers can provide a view of some exciting athletic contests and it also provides an opportunity to do some ‘people watching’.
As a retired teacher I keep track of the number of times certain students enter and leave the gym during an athletic contest. When they make the trek from their seat, across the gym floor to the hallway and commons area more than a half dozen times before half time of a basketball game I smile to myself and think, “I’m glad I’m retired and don’t have that young person in class five days a week for 180 days!” They are a perfect example of ADD in action.
Fashions and fads are also on display. I understand and accept that fads or fashions are a normal part of our society, especially among the young. When I was a teenager I wouldn’t be caught dead at a school event without my hair greased with Brylcreem (a little dab will do you) and a small plastic comb in my back pocket.
A fad will bother me only if it seems so far out that I can’t imagine why it exists in the first place. Take blue jeans for example. I can remember the first day of school during each of my high school years. I would always have on a pair of new blue jeans. Under Armour or Nike hadn’t been invented yet so we had to settle for the ‘in’ blue jeans brand from that era. LEE blue jeans were the in fashion overalls and if your new jeans sported the little leather tag on your belt line that read LEE you were in the in crowd. As the school year passed and your LEE’s began to fade they were still wearable. If a small hole appeared Mom would quickly apply a patch. In fact ‘iron on’ patches became the rage in later years.
When the school year ended the faded jeans were demoted to work clothes and were worn while baling hay, pitching manure, rock picking and milking cows by hand.
In modern times the blue jeans are still with us but in a much different capacity. The first big difference is the snugness of the garment. The jeans are so tight that I’m sure the wearer must have had to grease their legs with Vaseline just to slip them on. They are cool from the fashion point of view but they are also cool from the thermometer’s point of view. They have holes in them! Not tiny holes but multiple rows of large holes that would have driven mothers from my era insane. Also the ‘iron on patch’ industry would have prospered greatly.
As these partly nude legs paraded in front of me on their way across the gym floor I marveled at the toughness of the wearers since the outside temperature was well below zero. Then I noticed that most of the jean wearers were young ladies and it made sense to me. You see female hormones cause an extra layer of fat to develop under the skin. The young lady is insulated from the below zero temperatures.
If a guy tried to dress in such a cool fashion you would be able to hear his cries of agony as he raced across the large parking lot to reach the school. His knees would be suffering from hypothermia by the time he reached the gym door.
Tight fitting, faded blue jeans with multiple holes is a fad that makes no sense to me! But I’m old and I realize having things not ‘make sense’ just goes with the territory.
To me tattoos are another senseless fad. I know exactly why that is the case. When I was a child only pirates sported tattoos and back in those dark ages pirates were hated, feared and despised! Luckily I grew up in the middle of the country far from any oceans so I was never threatened by their presence.
My first memory of seeing an actual tattoo was when some of the local men returned from serving in the navy and they had an anchor or American flag tattoo on their upper arm.
Actually we did add a little color to our skin back then but the sun was responsible for that. That process was referred to as getting a sun tan. Since sun tan lotion had not been invented yet the actual process for tanning took four steps; burning, blistering, pealing and finally a tan. It was probably more painful than getting a tattoo.
Tanning beds were unheard of back then. The closest way to replicate a tanning bed back in the 50’s was to fall asleep in a sun exposed hammock for a couple hours.
The blonde haired, blue eyed Norwegians weren’t successful with the tanning process. Their long term exposure to the sun produced blotchy red skin and no tans. I’m thinking if we go back in history and do a little research that quite possibly those first tattooed pirates were frustrated Norwegians who wanted a little more color in their skin.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m not against all tattoos. A small rose tattoo on the ankle would be very acceptable to me. A husband putting a tattoo of his wife’s name over his heart would actually be quite romantic. It’s when the person turns his or her entire skin area into a tattoo canvas. Now that to me does not make any sense. But I’m afraid it is a fad that will be around for quite a while.
Forty years down the line it will lead to a new form of entertainment in nursing homes across the country. Old, wrinkled residents will gather around sharing their favorite shriveled and faded tattoos while others guess what the original tattoo was.
Well my rant is over. I am done talking about snug blue jeans with holes and bodies with excessive tattoos. What I should do now is follow that old proverb of walking a mile in the other person’s moccasins so that I can understand how they feel.
So this summer when things warm up a bit I’ll take an old pair of work jeans and aerate them with my scissors. Maybe it will be a pleasant experience as I’m weeding the garden and the wind is blowing freely up my pant legs.
That tattoo idea I’m not sure about. I’ve heard getting one can be kind of painful. I think I’ll buy boxes of Cracker Jacks until I get a prize that is one of those stick on tattoos. That will give me enough of an idea to see if I’d be comfortable being a pirate!
Until next time! 🙂
