Today’s guest post comes from Clyde.
I am not the man I used to be. My doctor told me so.
Well, it was her nurse who told me that I have become a lesser man. The way she said it was, “Your height is 5 feet 10 inches.”
I said, “Really?”
She said, “I’ll check it again. You’re 5 feet 10 AND 1/8 inches.” Ah, me! Phew! That 1/8 made me feel better.
Since my height for most of my life was 5 feet 11 7/8 inches, it is not a stretch, pun intended, to say I have lost two inches in height. Because I always claimed a height of 6 feet, it is only fair that I now claim a height of 5-10. I lost most of that height in a short time, less than a year. Ah, me! I think I’ll call myself a Settler. Maybe gravity suddenly became stronger in Mankato. Maybe my load of care is getting me down. Now I really am in depression. It has to be something the Republicans did. “They’re turning me into a Newt!”
Don’t you think I would have noticed? That it would have been harder to get things down from shelves, for instance. Harder to reach light bulbs. I am a typical male: I don’t see the thing right in front of my face unless you point at it. Wait a minute, it was harder to reach light bulbs. It should now be easier to reach down to the floor, but it’s not. Ah, me! Go figure.
Another bad thing is that I am now ten more pounds overweight, even though I have lost weight. Ah me!
Then I noticed that the cuffs of my pants and pajamas are getting frayed. One could say I’m dressed in drag. I told the launderer he should have spotted it and told me, but he has lint for brains. Now I really have a problem; I cannot buy off-the-rack anymore. I have a rather odd body. Despite having once been 6 feet tall, I had a 30 inch inseam, which is the bottom end of rack-sizes for my waist. I seem to have a 29-inch inseam or closer to 28 perhaps. Ah me! I could take up sewing.
Wait! A friend just sent a picture of fourth graders in the Two Harbors of my youth. All the boys had the cuffs of their jeans turned up three to four inches. Could we bring back that style, please?
What style do you want to bring back?
Trail Baboon 
I say, go for it, Clyde. Fashion today has become completely subjective (unless, perhaps, you are a teenage girl, heaven help you if that is your fate). Women’s hemlines have been all over the place for at least a decade and Retro and Vintage are perfectly acceptable. For myself, I wish there was a bit more formality expected in every day life. I like hats, gloves and those snappy suits of the late 40s and early 50s. I get that that does not work for most people these days, but you did not specify that I had to long for something popular.
About the only thing I can think of that is a complete “no” is the leisure suit (thank goodness, ugly then, ugly now). Since you mentioned the Newt, I do equate him with a fashion item: like platform shoes, I had to go through that once, I should not be asked to do it again, thank you very much.
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Happy Valentine’s Day Baboons!
Clyde, I ADORE that picture. What a bunch of cute kids. Could have been my 4th grade class, except yours is larger. Is that you, with the Two Harbors t-shirt, in the front row? If not, where are you in the picture? Love those white sox all the girls are wearing.
I’m with mig, leisure suits should be permanently banned. The only use I can think of for them is to cause much hilarity at a costume party. Another fashion that I wish would go away is that gangsta hip-hop look. Ugh.
Can’t think of a particular fashion I wish would come back. I have worn my share of suits and formal attire during my time in the accounting and legal fields, have NO desire to return to that. These days it’s all about comfort for me, if it happens to look good too, that’s great, but for me, comfort rules.
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im betting striped shirt and glasses
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and you’d be wrong, he’s not in the picture.
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tim, see my post below that one of my friends thought it was perhaps me.
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Good morning to all. The same thing happened to me recently, Clyde. The nurse measured me and I was only 5-11. I thought I was at least 6 ft. I didn’t ask for a second measurement. At one time I was 6-2. I knew that I have been getting shorter, but 5-11? I think I will claim the nurse was wrong. She was a short person and had trouble checking me. She asked me if I thought she was correct and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to deal with the possibility that I was now really under 6 ft if that is true.
I’m still okay on finding pants with the right leg length. I have noticed that I have lost about one inch in leg length. I could use a return of the rolled up cuff style to make use of some of my older pants.
A style from my past that might be kind cool to bring back is the one where you turn up your shirt collar in the back as you can see in some of the early pictures of Elvis. All the cool guys did that when I was in junior high school. I tried that this morning and it worked good for keeping the back of my neck warm. it is not possible to do that when wearing t-shirts. If you were a real cool guy when I was young and you had on a t-shirt you might roll up a pack of cigarettes in the sleave of your t-shirt, you know, like James Dean.
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i thought james did it like me
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Is that true? I supose that was back in the day when you were living out the life of a rebel without a cause.
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Greetings! Funny blog, Clyde. I always say I’m 5′ 10″ even though I’m probably 5′ 91/2″ or less at this point. Like PJ, I can’t think of many styles I’d like to see come back. Comfort trumps everything though at this point. Although I would like to see women’s pants that actually fit at the true waistline; most of them fit at the high hip or hip level. I find some at Lands End from time to time. I like the look better overall. I also have a couple vintage dresses from the ’50’s I’m guessing. Beautiful fabric, elegant tailoring and drape and they fit me like a dream when I was in college. Not sure why I keep them — I’d like to find an appropriate place to donate them. Do theaters take these or a costume house?
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Hi Joanne, only speaking for myself, we’ll always take clothing donations however I can’t promise we’ll keep them as they are. MIG and Anna might have better comments.
We’ve got some early 1900’s vintage clothing here that was donated years and years ago; while it’s beautiful stuff, the fabric has become too delicate to do much with. And of course no one is built the same these days so they don’t fit anyone.
I think our costumer will save buttons and lace, but sometimes it’s just not salvageable.
Your stuff from the 50’s is probably more usable.
You should ask around in Monticello. It might simply come down to if they have room for more donations.
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You might try calling the colleges in St. Cloud – St. Ben’s or St Cloud State I’m sure have costume shops that would appreciate the donation. Theater in the Round or Lakeshore Players (in White Bear Lake) are also options as I’m pretty sure each of those theaters has reasonable storage space for costume stock. And Ben’s right, being from the 50s, your pieces are probably still in usable shape – older fabrics are often too delicate to be usable (my cousin had intended to wear our grandmother’s wedding gown when she got married, but it started to fall apart even just trying it on…).
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or 30 bucks on ebay
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ok, have to weigh in on donating vintage stuff that is “too fragile”: even if it cannot be worn, it can still be studied by those who will be doing a show from that era for style and construction details.
If Anna’s cousin had had her heart set on Grandma’s wedding dress that was disintegrating, it might have been possible to find a dressmaker capable of reproducing it (and in her size too!) I’ve never been asked to do that, but I could.
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MiG – my cousin found a very similar dress in a shop and chose that one. I took my mom’s dress apart for parts to use on my gown – not all of it would have been wearable, but i was able to snag a bunch of the over-embroidered lace and some organza to use in the dress made for me (by a costumer pal). Totally agree about how nice it is to have those pieces to study – it can help to see how they are put together and what the shapes are in the original piece.
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I’m with you on pants waistlines. I have a deep loathing for the low-rise and “slightly below the waist” cuts that seem to be all you can find these days. As a long-waisted gal, it’s just not a comfortable cut – they’re all too low. (And Lands End recently discontinued the jeans I had been buying that fit…mostly…darn them.)
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men get the waistline challange. why is it that all the weight goes right on your bellybutton. why is everyman over 50 got that pregnant bulge down there. i can lose ten pounds and lord knows where it comes off from but it is not there. put pants on and they ride down below the pooch. start sliding off the butt and turn you into dan ackroid. remember when we were all wild and crazy guys with our form fitting checkered spandex trousers… oh buy
i went from a tad under 6 to 510 a while back too but it didnt alter the pant length just the belt size. im smushed down a bit i think
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Clyde, I thought you would know better! The rolled jeans cuffs were never a “style” but a hedge against shrinkage and unnecessary expenses. In the 50s clothing typically shrank when washed, often shrinking significantly. Because of that, mothers bought jeans with loose waists and inseams long enough to take a bunch of shrinking and then last several months more after the cuff was rolled out.
There is one big advantage to being shorter now than you once were. When it starts to rain, the six footers will get wet before you “settled” folks do.
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I am fully aware of pant shrinkage and buying oversize. But even then pants did not shrink 3-4 inches on a 20 inch inseam.
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you were stylin clyde. the girl teens are doing it now (and the cougars)
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Shrinkage, schminkage-boys grow.
at an alarming rate.
ask me how I know.
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🙂
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thanks, Clyde – super picture and blog – like PJ it looks like my 4th grade class also.
i’ve been 5’1″ since high school so i’m used to things being too long. in HS we would roll up our skirt waistbands several times to shorten the skirt. i will often roll my jeans up into cuffs but the problem with that is i get lots of hay bits in the cuffs and then bring all that into the house. so mostly i just let the bottoms fray. even “petite” (now there’s an oxymoron for my jean size, if i ever saw one) is too long.
i like being comfortable, so i like these times when no one seems to care if you don’t fit the mold. not in Blackhoof, anyway 🙂
Happy Valentines Day, All.
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You’re right, biB, that is a terrific picture. Does anyone know which kid is young Clyde? I’ve not met him and couldn’t guess.
I have a picture just like that of my confirmation class, and it really looks funny today. It is too bad there isn’t a gallery where we all could post one such group photo. Mine includes several kids who look like they had to be drawn by Gary Larson.
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I also like the picture and the writing. Very good job, Clyde. Is PJ, right? Are you the one in the Twin Harbors t-shirt? I think that might be you. Steve, I think PJ and I might be right, but Clyde has a big white beard these days which gives him a different look.
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Jim, FWIW that was the kid I thought might be Clyde. He did say he was tall back then.
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What does FWIW mean?
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I’m guressing FWIW is short for “for what it’s worth”.
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I grew up haying in cuffed jeans. I had to unroll the cuffs and brush them out before going in the house.
I think it’s funny you think I’m the boy in the TH T-shirt. The odd thing about him in this pix is how little he is smiling. To this day he looks just about like that and has a big grin on his face. A happy person should have the right name, and he does: Holiday is h is last name.
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Barb, I have the same problem you have when I roll up my pants. Some how I collect a lot of stuff in the cuffs when I am outside and it ends up coming out of the cuffs in the house and making a mess.
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Morning all — I have struggled most of my life with being the shortest person in my family. I’m not actually short… about the national average, but all of my immediate family is quite a bit taller than the national average. Most of my nieces and nephews are now taller than I am (one niece who is only 12 now will probably surpass me) but adopting my China, I thought at least I would always be taller than the child. I’m a little worried… if she gets another inch or so and I shrink, it will be back to the basement with me. Ow!
I never gave up rolling up my pant cuffs since for my shorter body, I have even shorter legs. But it’s the saddle shoes that I miss. I still have a pair in the closet from junior high that are hoping for their return to fashion!
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Saddle shoes were never in fashion in Denmark, but I had a pair, a gift from my Irish uncle who owned a shoe store in Dublin. I LOVED my saddle shoes.
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I went to a private girls’ school. Other schools had uniforms but our only requirement was that we wear sturdy tie shoes. People wore either saddle shoes or brogues (a brown tie shoe with a fringed flap over the tongue). I assume that the reason was to have us look tidier and more put together than if we had been allowed to wear loafers or whatever.
I foiled their plan by wearing one pair of saddle shoes for 4 years. They were neither tidy nor put together by the time I graduated. We called them “sturds” for “sturdy shoes”. I don’t think I really miss them but I did have some fondness for them by the time they were retired.
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My son was very long and thin, even as an infant. His slightly older boy cousins were very short and compact. We used to call them “stub scouts” when they joined the Boy Scouts. I depended on my sister-in-law for baby and toddler clothes in those years. She would have to let them out and hem them up for her boys to wear, and when her boys were finished with them she would ship them to me and I would take them in and let down the hems for my son to wear. My sister in law lived in Oshkosh then and bought a lot at the outlet store there. Those Oshkosh clothes were still good after three busy boys were done with them.
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Morning!
I don’t think there’s any fashion style I’d like back. My hair maybe, just so I could find a style for it, but not a clothing style.
Our house was built in 1968. There’s one bathroom downstairs yet that was painted bright pink with polka dots and striped wallpaper on the bottom half. Very 1960’s. My wife hates it but she doesn’t use it. I use it and I like it. I tell her it’s coming back in style. I do not think she will ever accept it. I say It’s sort of a shrine to my family.
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i remember psychodylic wallpaper in my parents bathroon in 1969. it is coming back any day now.
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My wife gave me a valentine gift–the flu. Not really very bad.
So you want to know which one is me. See the grinning boy right in front of the teacher? That’s not me. See the boy next to him? That’s not me either, but one of my best friends in senior high. I’ll tell you about him later. Now go to the middle of that row. The blonde girl right in the middle. That’s not me either. 🙂 That is one rather scary woman, she and her husband are the embodiment of the hateful Tea Party folk.
Now go all the way to your right end of the third row. Now look six blocks to her left to the north and there I am in the other school. I should call this group the snotty Minnehaha south-siders since I was in the north end John A. Johnson school. But I cannot say that because they kept switching me back and forth between the two schools. We were the class right ahead of the boomers and they were struggling to find and build classrooms. I spent two years having class in basement store rooms. Not sure why I kept getting switched back and forth, me and just a few others, maybe 5 or 6. My six grade class was moved twice, ending up in a brand new classroom. They were also building the plant at Silver Bay then so we had a lot of kids coming and going for that. Some good kids, Two of my best friends ever came and went.
My class had four sections, two in each school, then about 8 kids went to school in Knife River and joined us in sixth grade, my best friend all the way through school was one of them. And about 8 kids from Brimson joined us in ninth grade.
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You lost me, Clyde. Are you saying you’re not in this picture?
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No, I an not in that pix.
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thats cheating
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I too have never completely let go of cuffed jeans – there have been a couple of times when they were in for a short time (even if there was a practical side too, Steve), but I’ve always rolled a cuff when I was too busy to hem a too-long pair of pants! Of course, I hardly travel in Haute Couture circles…
It seems like everything comes around again. I loved this one shawl collar sweater I had in high school, and I saw some like it again last year. Bell bottoms came back, capris came back (we called them peddle pushers originally) certain sleeves and shoulder lines come and go, and like mig said, the hemline thing is such a joke. I know where to find non-hip-hugger pants, so I’m happy.
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OT_I got a note from Betty at MNSings. I was chosen as a finalist for one of my Sweetheart songs. It will be fun to hear a bunch of people sing it–Kind of like the Grammys for liberals. It would be a pleasure to have baboons in the chorus!
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YES
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Congratulations Beth-Ann.
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Fantastic! Let us know if you make the final cut. 🙂
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congrats they didnt choose my nazi number huh?
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They didn’t go for “Springtime for Hitler?” How could they be so blind?
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I am also a finalist – got an e-mail from Betty today!
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Yay! Congrats.
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Way to go, Linda!
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Congratulations, B-A! “Kind of like the Grammys for liberals” . . . I’m thinking of something like the Rock Bottom Remainders.
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For the community sing, is there a secret Baboon handshake or subtle outfit accessory or do we “know them by their limping”?
It appears I will be able to come and sing B-A’s and Linda’s songs lustily.
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I have to admit to a certain fondness for the funky parts of the 80s looks – the vintage wear, skinny ties and such. Not so much, though, with the big shoulder pads and “mall bangs”…but I miss the slightly updated “Annie Hall Meets New Wave” looks that i wore then: men’s suit jackets from the 60s with a loose tie and spangly bracelets and big earrings, loose men’s vests with oversize dress shirts or my grandpa’s old green v-neck cardigan with a soft t-shirt and a sparkly cotton scarf…plus I was a lot slimmer then. Slimmer and my old vintage men’s wear would be great…
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Here’s how out of touch I am, I had to google “mall bangs” to find out what they were. Had no idea they were called that.
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I liked that look, too.
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Some of you I know remember Steve Cannon on WCCO. He one night had a bad toothache and had trouble finding a dentist to treat him in the middle of the night so he could be on the air the next day. He found one and forever after would talk about his dentist, who through his daughter had some interesting connections to Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Hardy so Cannon would tell tales his dentist told him. The boy in the third row, second from your left, dark hair and glasses, is that dentist, Jack, but Cannon called him John.
The boy three to the dentist’s left is another of my close circle of friends in high school and then he and I were at the U. He also became a dentist and then went on to become an oral plastic surgeon in Duluth. He is also a John. He sent my the photo and asked if I am the boy right in front of the teacher, which, as I said, is not. No one knows who he is. Probably one of the kids who passed through as part o the Silver Bay construction.
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The boy right in front of the teacher looks a lot like a boy in my daughter’s circle of friends, even the glasses and the smile are similar.
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I bet everyone on this blog can find someone in the pix who looks like someone they know. I put it up because it has a certain iconic feel to it. I have my pix of fourth grade in the other school, but it just does not looks so “right” as this one does.
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You could post that one too, anyway…
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i like the bogart hat and the top coat that is knee length of heavy wool. i took my son out to look at cars on october 31 and the guy at the car lot asked if i was dressed up for halloween. he was not a dresser. hats are great anytime not baseball hats but real hats. look at those movies form the 30s 40s 50s even 60s and hats were there. you can tell a lot about a person form their hats their shoes and their watch. i guess you can tell a lot about a person from just about anything but hats and shoes and watch are as good a place to start as anywhere. happy valentines day all.
oh i also liked the free sex of the sixties but i may just be thinking about that today because i have a heart on
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Ba dum BUM (rimshot)
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🙂
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Pun intended, Lisa?
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My favorite style for women is always one of of two things, neither of which my wife will wear, because she insists they look odd on her. 1)Shirtwaist dresses. 2) peasant dresses and that style of hair women wore then, relaxed loops of hair down over the ears. Hard to describe properly. My wife says that I am hopelessly lost in arcane notions of women.Girls in the late 70’s and or maybe early 80’s wore layered clothing that I thought was attractive.
My style for men would be 1) the way Tiger Woods dresses, although he was built to look good in clothes. 2) the Colonial period but in modern fabrics. 3) Edwardian period.
Actually I like anyone who has their own style. Who does not follow the crowd (I have a post about that on my blog) but finds an appealing but distinctive blend of colors, cuts, fabrics, and forms that says who they are.
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tim, my one contact with you says you are one of those people with a style, a statement pleasing to the eye but distinctively that person.
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thank you clyde
i must have worn my clean shirt that day.
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An odd thing about me is that I am very aware of style and dress as a cultural phenomenon and a personal statement, but I could care less about how I dress, mostly as a slob.
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I so wanted to post a picture here of me with my 18-year old grand daughter, but I’m not sure how to do this? Help?? My family’s line of women has never seen one over 5’3″. My grandma was 5′; my mom 5’1″; me 5’2″; my daughter 5’3″; her daughter broke the mold at a towering 5’10”. The photo makes me look like a grade-schooler. I’ve shrunk to 5’1″, but weigh less than I did in junior high so overall I’m really shrinking. Clyde, your piece was hilarious and so very engaging – thank you!!
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You can always find me in school pictures since I am the tall one in the back row. We grow them tall in SW Minnesota-all that pork and sweet corn. I am 5’9″. My mother was 5’11” before she got old, and her mother was 6’0″. My daughter is 6’0″ and I think she has an inch to go yet, being only 16. Her brother is 6’5″. I am the shorter than the others since my dad was only 5’8″. I am an example of regression toward the mean.
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I’d like those longer sweaters to come back, but loose fitting tunics that hide the bumps and bulges, instead of these skin tight ones.
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How about those bras that formed breasts into a blatant point? I used to stuff Kleenex into them to make my own “points”!
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Bumps and bulges, snort! What the heck are you talking about, BiR? They’re curves.
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Look at the teacher. She was always, like many teachers, referred to as “Old Miss_______” Funny, is it not. Just look at how old she is in this pix. The two elementary schools had several women teachers like her. Who taught the same grade in the same room for years. I only had one of them, in first grade.My sister had one of those classic women teachers each year, including this one, three years ahead of this picture. This woman and the two my sister had in fifth and sixth grade had a profound impact on my sister, taught her to think she could go to college and go onto higher success, which my sister did. 1952-55 was not a time when people taught girls to think that.
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I remember so many of my teachers looking “old”, too. But with kind faces like the teacher in “Christmas Story”. Wonder how many of them really were? Those were the days when most grandmas were “old”, too — wore housedresses with aprons and those lace-up black shoes with stacked heels from the time they turned 40. They all had that proud profile with the large bosom in front that balanced out down below in the rear.
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I think you’ll find that a lot of teachers from the era when we were young (say the 1950s) were young. Teaching used to be a demanding profession that didn’t pay well. It not only attracted women more than men but the profession had a lot of old women, mostly unmarried. They were better able to handle the work load that often included evening or weekend tasks that weren’t paid for. When I was a kid, my elementary teachers were almost universally spinster women. The one young woman teacher I had was given the bum’s rush when she got pregnant. She wasn’t allowed to go on teaching once she acknowledged she was pregnant, even though she was married.
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Accch! I wish we could edit these things. I meant, of course, that teachers used to be old. They were expected to make their whole lives available for school duties. Young people had other things to do. I’m thinking this changed in the 1960s, a time when teaching was gradually professionalized.
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That teacher looks just like my grandma in the 1960s.
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Since I was diagosed with osteoporosis, I have made an effort to stand up extra tall when I get measured. As a result, they keep coming up with higher results than the height I used to think I was. That will probably only work so long.
I agree with all the bemoaning about women’s waistlines. When they were so ridiculously low, I really felt for young girls with hips like mine. Especially bad were jeans with a white belt. I always felt that the white belt was saying, “LOOK HERE, here’s the widest part of my body! In case you missed it, here it is!!”
I do think they have become less extreme.
I was interested to hear Tim describe issues with a “pooch” I thought that was just a female problem.
I can’t think of much that I would like to see come back except maybe the loafers I was not allowed to wear in high school (or before high school because I had flat feet – doctor’s orders).
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I adored my saddle shoes and penny loafers. Wish I still had them. And there was a time when I enjoyed dressing in mid-19th c. clothing till the day when I ate Chinese food with MSG, swelled up like a balloon, and had to be cut out of my corset with a knife in the middle of the restaurant. Been claustrophobic ever since. Agree with those of you who say that comfort is the only name of the game now.
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there was a period of time (early 60s?) when we wore white “buckskin” shoes – polished them and then brushed the nap with a small wire-bristle brush. wore them for band also. loved those as much as my saddle shoes.
then there were the cheap flats we bought at (i forget – downtown mpls) in colors to match our clothing – red, black, blue, etc. – for $2.99. pointy toes and the flattest of flat heels. and then we’d put cleats on them so they’d click when we walked down the terrazzo halls of school. i think my feet don’t miss those shoes.
OT: took a long walk with the Girls this afternoon. then, sitting in the sun, Dreamy at my feet just like it was summer. Dreamy misses her waistline also (well, she hasn’t said so) but when she is lying down she is about three feet diameter – and still almost six weeks before she kids. uff da.
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I forogt about the buckskins. I had them too. Cool. We could bring those back.
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We called them “white bucks.”
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the person i want to know about is the skinny, short, sad little guy in the first row, extreme right.
goodness. msut have had a toothache – little did he know he had future dentists just in back of him.
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His whole appearance, including the way he’s holding his hands, screams “verklempt” doesn’t it?
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Oh my yes. I just want to put my arm around him and tell him “It’s going to be all right!”
Just noticed — I used to have glasses just like the little girl at the end of row 1. Then in the late 70’s the glasses morphed into what looked like giant insect eyes. Don’t miss any of that.
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He was my locker mate in grade 7 in the high school. Billy. (They did not yet have enough lockers for all the students they were getting.) As a result we were sort of friends that year. He was just never a very happy person.Withdrawn. But I was a loner up through grade 6. I am not and never have been known for my willingness to smile. Billy was a member of a quite large family. He and two other boys in my class did not fit in well into the boy-girl theme of high school.My wife looked at this picture, picked him out, and drew the right deduction. But I don’t think they were teased much. Maybe. All three fled quite far and wide after graduation and have had no contact with anyone in the class that I know of. One has lived in India for years. Wherever Billy ended up, I hope he is happy,
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I actually know only three of the girls in this group. I am sure I should know a few of the others by name, but I do not. One girl, third from left, second row, Sally, and I were friends in grades 3 and 5. She moved away in grade 6. I had girl-friends. My best friend in grades 6 to 8 and one of my best friends after that was a girl. Another person who swam upstream socially. We tried the dating thing. But . . . She is not in this picture either. I would love to have contact with her. I do not know her married name and her maiden name makes her very hard to find, Too common.
I’ll give you three others to think about: very middle front row. Can you tell his father had a men’s clothing store?
Front row, third from your right. The long-time athletic director told me that that boy was the greatest athlete he ever saw. He could do anything. He ended up a professional athlete, playing sports like racquetball and paddle ball. Many time national champion.
Second row, first on your left. Okay, deduce his character.
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Yes to the first boy — he’s got the cool cowboy shirt that every other boy coveted.
The athletic boy jumped out at me too — he’s the one with the effortless confidence, everything rolls off his back, never feels disapproval, just laughs and takes everything in stride. Kind of a contrast to verklempt who’s anxiety ridden.
Number 3 has a very sweet face. I hope you aren’t going to tell us he’s demented.
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“Happy Go Lucky” is the descriptive I was trying to think of for #2.
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1) Very intelligent. My class was famous for all the wasted intelligence. Many of the very smartest kids, all boys, did not make it through grade 12. Many of our teachers, later my colleagues, testified that mine was the worst class they had eve known. 2) This boy was pure devil. Always up to something, not really bad, just a boy who could not keep from doing something. A prankster. But a very nice guy actually. I taught both of his very smart, very quiet children.
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That would name it. A very nice kid and man
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We interwove our posts. The very smart devil is my number 3, at end of second row. The happy-go-lucky one is the athlete, whom Robin described to a TEE, a TEE.
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he owns Sonju Two Harbors “where the cars are” i bet. 🙂 no?
he owns the Dairy Queen? (he’s smiling, thinking of soft serve ice cream)
i’m still haunted by Billy….. hope he’s happy too, Clyde.
thanks for a fun day.
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He got an engineering degree and worked somewhere in Duluth.
DQ is now owned by someone who moved in and bought it. My sister worked at the DQ for seven years. That is a very famous DQ.
I taught all the kids of the family who owned Sonju Motors, whose father Adler Johnson married a Sonju. He was a really really fine man, Adler Johnson. Love that name, Adler Johnson.I also sometimes baby-sat the Johnson kids because my girlfriend did.
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Clyde, you’re not the man you used to be – I’m twice the woman I once was! I don’t care about the styles! I just wish I had my 1976 body back!
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I second that! I wouldn’t mind having my mind back either. Somehow it’s not very comforting knowing that I have been better and will probably get worse.
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For a week or so around Valentine’s Day I work in a florist shop, and it never fails to amaze me. last weekend there was a big dance in one of the local schools, and we got a ton of order for corsages. I keep thinking, really?, people really still wear corsages? Are these the same girls with the pierced noses and eyebrows and tongues, and multiple tatoos? It just seems so fifties. Most of them are wrist corsages.
You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their wrist corsage.
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Does seem an anachronism doesn’t it? We ate at Old Country Buffet, a good place for two gluten-free eaters. A young woman came in, black thick liner all around both eyes, severely straight henna tainted-hair, her breasts squeezed into the middle and over the top. She sat down near us with her salad and a glass of chocolate milk. Everyone is a contradiction.
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I went through a henna-tainted phase myself, once upon a time.
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We’d like pictures of that, Linda.
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Hey, Steve, waiting for tomorrow for you. Liam ahoy!!
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One of my first memories of life in America. My then mother-in-law had arranged a wedding shower for wasband and me during our five day stay at their house after my arrival. She had made a point of inviting wasband’s high school girlfriend (whom she had wanted him to marry) to the shower. I, of course, didn’t know a soul. I remember how utterly ridiculous I felt with a white carnation corsage attached to my wrist and an nervous, insincere grin on my lips. Not an auspicious start to newly wedded bliss. A very far cry from the warm Italian family that I thought I had joined.
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