It was cold and rainy the other day, and between too many political ads and too much COVID 19 news everywhere I looked I was on my last nerve and fading when friend Dudley knocked at my door and immediately made me week in the knees with laughter. He was standing on my doorstep in his usual (grandson’s) underwear mask: with a button-down oxford shirt, charcoal vest sweater, khakis and brand new Chelsea boots. And around his neck was a nice silky bow tie!
Now, no-one hates neckties more than I do: I had to wear one every working day for almost 30 years. Yet the bow tie and sweater seemed to be just the ticket for a Dudley (or me) who also hates ties. Even Dud’s mask was a pair of deep blue child’s unders as opposed to the usual “tidy whities” he wears.
“Going to a funeral”, he explained. “I decided I should dress up for it.” You have to understand that except for the khakis, Dud is an untucked shirt and loafers guy like me. (The only variation he’ll consider is jeans instead of well worn chinos.)
” But the bow tie,” I said, “where did that come from? Oh, I have to admit I like it on you; but WHY?” He grinned and tugged at the tie and said: “Come on! You hate neckties as much as I do, and for the same reasons: They serve absolutely no purpose; they get in the way of EVERYTHING you do; if you pick up a heavy object you invariably catch the tie between it and your hand and then choke yourself trying to maneuver the load; and everybody in the world wears the damn things!” (I love it when Dud get going!)
“But consider the bow tie: Wearing one puts you in the company of Winston Churchill, Thomas edison, Doc Hazlitt from “Murder, She Wrote”, and Ducky Mallard from”NCIS”. What better company?” (Yes, I hear my son screaming “Pee Wee Herman” at the page, but the tie didn’t make the perv, the perv just wore the tie.) “Andy Rooney sometimes wore one, and the great Studs Terkel wore a bow tie when working. I tell you this is liberating! I defy you to get a bow tie in your soup or have it dangle in the blood as you’re helping dress a cut on someone’s arm! It won’t happen!”
[ I should take a moment here to explain why all this applies: You see Dud is very much like me. He’s short and way overweight (I, myself have never been tall enough for my weight range). He’s become used to allowing himself all the sartorial concessions he had to avoid while working (like a tucked shirt, buttoned collar and presentable belt and shoes.) I don’t tuck any shirt unless going to a wedding or funeral; I wear the most comfortable (read oldest and most scuffed) shoes I own; and the holes of my belt are half ripped through the leather from wear and trying to control my ample gut. Dudley dresses and presents himself very much as I do, with the exception of the underwear mask which actually works, but I don’t have the stones to use!]
Now Dud has unformed me he wants to change his appearance just for the sake of change. He has plans to buy two or three more vest sweaters (he can just as easily wear them without the dress shirt and tie), and he hopes to find a couple of extra bow ties. It turns out that most of them are made to fit necks up to 18 inches, while Dud’s stubby neck is about 20 1/4 inches around. He also wants to buy (I don’t know why) a blazer he can use for special events and finds the fashion industry’s description of him as “portly” to be screamingly funny. “First I was “husky”, then “short’, then just plain “large” and now I’m “portly”. All that because nobody wants to say I’m fat!”
“Added to all of this is the fact that current men’s fashion trends are skewed to the painfully skinny among us,” Dud wen on. “Look at what they sell for jeans! I see guys in the street wearing jeans you’d SWEAR they stole from their sister’s closet! Even the PGA has gone to the designer fads. A tour event on TV looks like slacks day on the LPGA circuit: pants so tight in the legs it’s embarrassing! If I wore my pants pegged (what we called it in our day) to that extent, with my hams, they’d look like slip covers for orange highway cones! And the suit jackets are no better: First, they’re all 2-button jackets which I HATE! If a jacket doesn’t have three buttons it looks like crap! Then, they’re all made – actually designed – to look like they’re last year’s coats and the wearer has put on about 7 pounds since he bought it. Not tight, but uncomfortably snug! When are these so-called fashion experts going to make clothes you can wear comfortably for business or dress occasions?”
By this time I’d spent so much time agreeing and laughing at Dud’s comments that the dull funk in my head had gone and the world looked a little better. I was actually enjoying myself until Dud wandered into the election coverage and I decided to kind of zone him out until he finished his piece. He finally left, and I kicked off my loafers and put my slippers on to watch Miss Marple prove once again that older is somehow more comfortable.
vince katarzynski
remnantsoflife 