The Sartorial (non)Sense of a Yankee
Now, before you get all offended, hear me out. I know that we here in the South have a few questionable fashion trends ourselves. Wife-beater t-shirts with cut off shorts and a baseball cap. Bowling shirts as formal wear. Speaking of formal wear, how about those electric blue tuxes trimmed in fire engine red? They fly off the shelves during prom season. Let’s not forget our redneck contribution to the world of hairstyles: the mullet.
But beyond these stylish embarrassments, we do have a strong sense of propriety, and dignity. Hawaiian shirts are reserved for bowling alleys, golf courses, and drunken frat boys who don’t know better. A southern woman will spend an hour and a half getting dressed and made up to run to the corner store for a gallon of milk. Sadly this custom is slowly disappearing as the Northern invasion continues. It won’t be long till the dreaded muumuu and hair rollers is as common in a Birmingham, Alabama Walmart as it is in Columbus, Ohio, another outrage perpetrated on the South that Yankees will surely pay for.
Southern fashion is basically conservative, with a preference for comfort, but not at the expense of appearance. We prefer jeans and a t-shirt with a ball cap to Bermuda shorts and a button down pink shirt. Sportier elements among us will replace the ball cap with a visor, but that can be dangerous around here, at least until the memories of Spurrier fade a bit. Occasionally, one of our more daring souls will try a fashion innovation, (“Hey Virgil, check this out! I’m wearing my socks on the outside of my shoes! Pretty cool, huh?”) but at considerable risk. Should he fail to carry off the new look with the appropriate southern panache, he will be heaped with such scorn and opprobrium that he will often slink off in the night, abandoning his wife and family to live in a shack in western Montana and write long rambling letters to newspapers nobody reads. A little known fact about the Unabomber is that he was a normal individual until the fateful day he attended a Lion’s club luncheon wearing khakis, a pink oxford, penny loafers, and a plaid sweater draped casually over his shoulders. Let that be a warning to the trendsetters.
But the rewards can be considerable. Fame attaches itself to anyone who adds a new word to our fashion vocabulary. The first woman to wear a hoop skirt in the south had an entire age named after her. I know this because I am descended from her. She was my great, great, great aunt three times removed on my sister’s husband’s uncle’s side of the family, and her name was Belle. Yes, Auntie Belle certainly set the Southern world on fire. The skirts rose to popularity quickly, since they made even the clumsiest woman look graceful, not to mention that they provided a nearly impenetrable barrier to amorous suitors. Later, during the war, they provided an invaluable hiding place for contraband goods, and in a pinch could serve as a hideout for a small platoon of Rebel soldiers. Junior Samples made overalls his trademark, as did Minnie Pearl with her hat, and who could forget the most famous piece of Southern apparel, now named after the character that made them famous, the Daisy Duke short shorts?
The reason for this little diatribe?
I was driving home from Knoxville last weekend, and I saw a guy from Michigan driving home from the Honda Hoot. At least, I assume he had attended the Hoot, because he had two beautiful Gold Wings on a trailer.
This was my first clue that all was not right with this gentleman. A gold Wing is built for one purpose: To pamper its rider with all the amenities of a luxury automobile while still enjoying the feel of a motorcycle. To trailer such a bike is to deny its very essence. If you are a short distance rider, get a cruiser!
Anyway, I was looking at the bikes when I noticed a dark blob near his side view mirror. I thought I was hallucinating, but as I drew even with his car, I found to my horror that he was dangling his foot out of the window, and worse yet, he was wearing black socks!
Now southerners have a long and proud tradition of sticking body parts out of moving vehicles, but there are rules for this sort of thing. Every child knows that if you stick your hand out of the window, you run the risk of having it fall off, at least, our mothers told us this every time we got caught, but the sensation of flight was always too powerful to resist. As we got older, and being cool became more important, the hand was replaced with the jaunty crooked elbow, sticking out the window at the perfect angle to show that the driver was not suffering from the lack of AC in his car, but that he wanted the window open. At this age, the hand rarely comes out of the window, except to signal the driver’s reaction the idiot in front of him who just cut across three lanes of traffic and slammed on the breaks, using the familiar single digit salute. The fact that the idiot in question almost always has license plates from north of the Mason-Dixon line cannot be a coincidence.
The only other body part that is approved for extravehicular extrusion is the bared buttock, and that only under certain formally recognized conditions set down in the Treaty of Appalachia back in 1851. But that’s it! No bellies, no kneecaps, no left shoulder blades, and certainly not feet. I do have to note in passing that these rules apply only to the driver; passenger rules are more relaxed. Dogs riding shotgun are required to stick their heads out of the window. A female riding shotgun is allowed to stick whatever she wants out of the window, and is encouraged to do so by passing truckers, especially if she is comely.
But black sock clad feet out of the driver’s side window? Absolutely not! To make matters even worse, he was wearing shorts! I didn’t see his footwear, but I’m morally certain that a pair of sandals would be found right next to the brake pedal.
Oh the horror!
In the interests of fostering amity between our regions, I did not ridicule this victim of sartorial stupidity, but just passed as quickly as possible, and tried to purge the site from my eyes. But I wanted to pass this on to all of you dear readers, in the sincere hopes that you can pass the word along and prevent a future tragedy.
Posted by Rich at June 29, 2002 12:26 PM