Levi’s 501’s

My wife and daughter-in-law have twisted my arm and persuaded me to finally break down and buy my millennial pair of the only kind of pants I feel truly at home in.  I, of course, have a couple pair of shrunken, faded, stained, tattered 501’s still in my closet from the 1980’s and ‘90’s, and other lesser jeans, but these new ones should keep me young (in my own mind) well past 2020.  Now, if I can only keep the waist size down to the 2” expansion that I’ve suffered to occur since I was 17 I will be ‘forever young’ (again, in my own mind).  I remember that the male class of ’61 would never think to wear anything else in public.

 

Reopening this bygone era I see myself caressing my white ash Hillerich and Bradsby Louisville Slugger 125 34” bone honed Mickey Mantle personal model baseball bat from the very early 1960’s and taking my batting stance.  And who could forget the smell of a new Wilson Ted Williams personal model baseball glove, lovingly oiled in bed with him by his pillow?  Likewise I see the boy in the Munsingwear golf shirt and Sam Snead straw hat pulling out the persimmon MacGregor tourney stiff shaft driver ready to launch a Spalding Dot 230 yards down the fairway.   I further visualize my shiny blue—and waxed-- Schwinn fat tire 26” one speed (slow) bike waiting for me upon returning home after debussing with the other kids of our neighborhood.  In the evening I put on my little mono record player treasured 45 rpm records by Johnny Cash, Elvis and maybe the Coasters.  A couple of years later came the coveting of ’55-’57 Chevy 2-door Bel Air hardtops or early Corvettes (which I never had).

 

Well, that cruise down memory lane was fun for me but entirely meaningless for anyone other than a then 12-15 year-old boy who grew up focusing these things (and on untouchable pretty pony-tailed girls) in the late 1950’s happy days.

Come to think of it, this posting is but an ‘old school’ rendition of the type of ‘folly’ I have gagged through in perusing a couple of Facebook postings of recent days.  I can hardly imagine anyone under 65 wanting to read this.  But if truth be told, I suppose every old man you see sitting on a park bench somewhere is remembering the same things.

Ask him.  It will make his (not your) day if you hang around to listen.