DRESS
CODES
From the
chapter "The Gentlest Decade"
DRESS
CODES
James
Dean became a sort of cult star and was very popular with
the kids in
Americus
High School
.
The “James Dean Uniform” started popping up: blue
jeans worn low on the hips, white T-shirt, and a red nylon
jacket with the collar turned up.
If you wore the uniform you also had to affect a
certain amount of swagger, and exhibit an air of disdain for
authority, rules, and regulations.
The principal finally issued a edict outlawing the
wearing of red nylon jackets.
It wasn’t the uniform that bothered the high school
staff, it was all that swaggering.
It was
around early 1960 that the “Ivy League” (precursor for
today’s preppy look) style came into vogue.
Boys wore light blue, yellow, or white Gant shirts
with the finger loop on the back of the shirt.
The only purpose served by those loops was to provide
something for the older boys to rip loose from your shirt.
Pants had buckles in the back, and were worn
“pegged,” meaning very tight britches legs for the last
foot of length. Bass
Weejuns, or penny loafers, provided the proper foundation
for the ensemble, with Gold Toe socks of the same color as
the Gant shirt. “Boatneck”
polo shirts, alligator golf shirts, and paisley sport shirts
were also popular, usually worn with “broke-in just
right” Levi-Strauss blue jeans worn low on the hips, much
like the kids do today.
Actually, not quite that
low.
I had
surreptitiously been letting my hair get long enough to
start training it into a ducktail, in reverential homage to
Elvis. I put
about three pounds of Butch Wax on my hair and actually got
it combed to the back along the sides.
The pomade went on sort of creamy, and then dried
into a hard shell, leaving each hair with a hard,
plastic-like coating impervious to fire, bullets, and most
acids. I got to
school, strutted in the front door, and decided to “let it
all hang out,” meaning I turned my shirt collar up in the
back. I made it
about five feet before a teacher turned my collar back down
with the admonition that, “You know better than that.
My God, what have you done to your hair?
Your daddy is not going to be happy about this.”
She
insured his unhappiness by calling him at work and
describing my deplorable behavior and appearance.
She may as well have signed my death warrant.
Dad was lying in wait when I got home and wasted no
time taking me to the barber shop.
He instructed the barber to, “Cut it like a Marine
recruit.” The
barber did. He
also charged Dad three dollars extra because he broke two
pair of scissors trying to cut through my Butch Wax pomade.
Sadly, that is how my brief flirtation with the
flagitious ducktail came to an ignominious end.
A
classmate showed up one morning sporting a new Mohawk
haircut. The
principal took the boy to the barbershop, and had the
boy’s head shaved. The
boy’s father called the principal at home that night and
thanked him profusely.
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