Tribute to Levi's.

I’m wearing my Levi’s.  I think it’s a generational thingy.  I don’t wear anything else but Levi’s.  I like them.  They are about 10 years old now, maybe 15 or so.  Could be more.  I can honestly say I have worn the same size jeans now for um….30 + years.  That’s really nice to be able to say at age 52 isn’t it?

The knee is out on the right leg.  The hem is very frayed.  The pocket rivets are starting to have holes in them.  The sewing around the leather patch on the back is coming out.

I will give Levi Strauss this. They make a damn fine pair of jeans.  I have tried other brands, all of them.

I remember in high school, there was a brand of women’s jeans/pants.  They made your butt look nicer, so they said.  GAK!  Senior moment. I cannot remember what they were called.  Oh!  I remembered.  Ditto's.  They were specially made to emphasize your rear end.

All the girls wore them.  Except me.  Nope.  Same old pair of Levi’s.

Except in Hawaii.  The years I lived in Hawaii, I wore my bikini under a pair of shorts, well okay, the shorts were cut off Levi’s so maybe it does count.

In school, you could actually leave if the surf was up.  And, I did.  Every single time.  A good bit of the teaching staff would as well.

Can you even imagine that today?  Some idiot would run through the halls shouting “Surf’s up!” and there was a general exodus.  Everyone would out to their cars, surfboards hanging out the windows or trunks.  Jump into the cars and off we went.

Parents didn’t even freak out if you didn’t show up after school.  They knew where we were and what we were doing.  Okay, well they thought they knew.  It was the sixties.  Since some of my adult children read this blog, I won’t go into too much detail. **wicked evil grin**

They all know anyway.  They make jokes about me not remembering the sixties and seventies LOL.

My Levi's and I went through alot of things together.  I always had 5 or 6 pairs running around in various states of disrepair.  Dogs and cats have given birth on them.  I have worn them to weddings (one of them mine), funerals, baptisms, dinners, the movies, the hospital, I wore them while pregnant and just left them unzipped and put a rubber band around the button.  My whole life has been lived in a pair of Levi's. 

We protested a lot back then too.  I have been thinking about those days recently.  The protests today just don’t seem the same for some reason.  Everyone is so excitable now.  And passionate.  I have my own beliefs and values, just like everyone else.  And, I even question them at times.

I stand up for those I feel are in need of some idiot to jump in and stand up for them.  I take stands after carefully thinking them through.  But, I put a lot of thought into it/them before I take any action.

I still don’t run out and shoot people (no matter how much I want to), or get arrested every other week, or travel to foreign countries to meddle in their business.

I was a horrid child.  Precocious doesn’t even come close.  Super bright and totally obnoxious is a better way to describe it I think.  If there was a law to break, I would break it, just out of onryness.  Is that a word?

But, I calmed down.  It was shortly after a rehearsal of my rock band.  I realized that I had just put sound deadening headphones on a 2 year old and a 2 month old.  Wow!  How did I get to be the mother of two little kids????

And what the hell was I doing leading a rock band, going to college and being a single mom?

The band was called “Snowblind” which is a condition experienced when the bright sun is shining on a freshly fallen, then slightly melted, then refrozen snow and the whole cumulative thing hits your eyes.  It also has exactly nothing to do with the name of the band.

Which was something else that I strongly considered.

So, I gave up the band and the um..extracurricular activities surrounding the um..lifestyle choices.

What makes some of us take inventory and stop destructive behavior patterns and some of us not?  If I knew that, I would probably be selling my system on late night TV and be really rich.  Maybe I should devote a good bit of spare time to that theory?

Nowdays, there are thousands of brands of jeans.  Nothing really iconic.  Maybe Abercrombie or Hollister, but see, even those aren’t alone out there.

Levi’s were.  There was Levi’s and then there was other jeans.  And, they weren’t preshrunk then.  Or zippered.  They were dark blue, button fly 501’s.  That was the only choice.  You bought them in the mens department.  They didn’t even have women’s Levi’s, at least where I grew up.  You bought them according to your waist size and inseam.   I started out in Jr High as a 28/30, then graduated wearing a 30/30 and am now a 34/30.  I didn’t get any taller, but I did get bigger around, LOL.

You had to buy them bigger in the waist and inseam than you ended up wearing to allow for shrinkage.  We were used to that.

There was only one tennis shoe too. Keds.  Basketball Jones shoes we called them.  Red, lace up high tops.  You only got the short ones when your mom was still in charge of your wardrobe.  And, we painted them in dayglo colors and with sayings on them.

I kind of miss my youth.  The freedom of it.   There is no freedom now.  Only responsibility.

But, I still have my Levis, so it can’t be all bad.