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    Thursday, November 12, 2009

    Clothestastrophe, Segment 1: Goin' Ta' Meetin' Clothes

    Look, I'm no pinnacle of fashion, never claimed to be. I don't set trends for what's a hot look, and I'm OK with that. And I'm certainly no label snob. I don't give a rip if you wear Levis or Luckys. I have no primary judgements in place about people who wear clothes from Walmart versus clothes from Express or American Eagle.

    But I'm pretty sure I look like the Paris Hilton of the midwest compared to the spectacle I saw this week.

    I attended a funeral, for a a friend's grandmother. We went "back home" for said funeral. Back home is a small town, and attending was lots of family, lots of close neighbors and friends; a big ole' bunch of down-home, good-hearted, hard-working folks. I say that with all seriousness and no sarcasm, and a respect for good people who live in good communities, much like the one I came from myself.

    Most of them dressed fairly "normally" for the area - the men in dark suits, the women in dark dresses or printed blouses with dress slacks. No real trend-setting going on, but then again, that's not the focus for folks like that, and that's really, really OK. With me, and with them.

    But there was this one guy. We'll call him "JimBob". That's not his real name. Not even close. In fact, "JimBob" would have BEEN a more fitting name than what his name really is. So to protect the man, and because it's more appropriate in my mind, he's JimBob.

    JimBob knew it was important to dress his best for this fine woman's funeral. Yet somehow, he missed the boat on the way to finding a realization for the definition for "best".

    Clearly he owns a suit. He was wearing the jacket, after all - a dark navy blue, very fancy suit jacket, with gold buttons down the front. Unfortunately, the pants either met an early demise, or he just didn't want to be tooooooo dressy...because he paired the jacket with clean, likely pressed, Wranglers. Possibly Dickies. But jeans, all the same. His feet donned black "shit kickers" as I'm guessing he calls them, but they were terribly clean. Surely his dress shit-kickers.

    Under the suit jacket was a yellow oxford shirt. Top button, maybe the next down as well, unbuttoned. No tie. No need to dress it up toooo much, again.

    The frosting on this clothing nightmare cake was his hat. A ten-gallon, you ask? A dressy cowboy hat, suitable at least in part for a funeral for such a dignified woman as this?

    Noooo.

    His green, somewhat worn, Pioneer seed corn ball cap (complete with a yellow "support our troops" ribbon pinned on the side) was apparently the perfect crowning piece for this ensemble.

    So get a picture of that.

    Black cowboy boots.
    Blue jeans.
    Yellow button-up shirt. Not buttoned.
    No tie.
    Navy blue suit jacket with gold buttons.
    Green seed corn baseball cap.

    I couldn't make this stuff up, folks. I wish so much that I'd have taken a picture so I could share with you the look in a more tangible way. I saw his brother there...he was in a suit. Apparently JimBob missed the family meeting about funeral garb. Poor JimBob.

    So, am I normally this catty? No. You know that. (Shut up, Deb.) Was this look just too awesome and uh, original to let pass by without sharing it with you? Yes. Yes, it was.

    I'm sure he's a good guy. A good ol' boy, who minds his folks to this day, works the land, takes care of what's his, and works his tail off year 'round. I would be a little sad if he somehow found this and put together that I was talking about him, because I'm sure he's clueless that he looked so painfully out of place in even a rather average, moderately fashioned group of people. That's why I would never tell him this even if I knew him. But maybe there's someone like him out there, who may read this.

    So the moral of the story is this: It pays to go to town once in a while, folks. Get on out there. See what folks is wearin' these a'days. Nobody's askin' for y'all to spend a fortune on super-fancy big city slicker clothes, but y'all could consider wearin' a WHOLE suit when we're saying our goodbyes to a lady who was kind of an icon in our lil' old community. And t'weren't nobody never died from puttin' on a tie.

    I thank ya kindly. Y'all have a good'n, alright?

    3 comments:

    Deb said...

    "So, am I normally this catty? No. You know that." Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha. (Yep, totally ignoring the admonishment.)

    maryjean said...

    I am so wearing a prom dress when you show up at my doorstep.

    Barbie said...

    I know I'm late on commenting... but this is so my family! Or some of them,they know who they are, too. This guy would NOT have been out of place at my grandfather's recent funeral. :) And Grandpa (a farmer for all his life) would have liked it that way. Too funny, Cathy.