Professor Robert Klose wrote an excellent newspaper column about the way college students now dress. The words “look sharp” and “presentable” jumped out at me when I read it.

Like many of my musician friends, just seeing or hearing words often plays a melody in my head – usually a song or jingle that I heard as a kid in the 1930s or ’40s. “To look sharp, da da da da da, to feel sharp, da da da da da….,” and so on. Google reminds me that this was an ad for razor blades. We’re talking about an era when your looks might have been more important than the way you smelled or what pills are available to keep bleary-eyed soccer moms plodding, like zombies, between games.

And who could forget the “To keep presentable longer” song for shaving cream?

My father taught us to sing it like this:

“To keep presentable shorter

“Do like Daddy does.

“He doesn’t even bother

“To scrape off all the fuzz.”

Professor Klose says that one of his students recently came to class dressed in pajamas.

You have observed that people with old money wear what they want where they want. Aren’t clothes and language the means by which those of us who ain’t there yet attempt to boost our social status?

When I started high school I wore my father’s cut-down, worn-out dress pants. The pockets had disintegrated, so my mother sewed them shut to keep me from being arrested. Back then most shoes had leather soles and when they’d get wet they’d fall apart. I remember cutting up a can and putting the tin in my shoes to keep my socks dry. We were not poor, but I had classmates who were.

A few years ago, a woman 10 years my senior told me that in the early 1940s my neighbor – the boy she dated in high school – boasted that he had three shirts. She told me that Arthur, whom she later married, had only one shirt.

Young people might find it hard to believe that there was a time when clothing was scarce. Nowadays my neighbors are always trying to give away clothing that they have either outgrown or inherited.

You might recall my telling you of the dungarees I got at a lawn sale. When I proudly showed them to my wife, Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, I pointed out that although they had two or three patches on them, they were sound.

She explained that they came from the factory with the patches already on them, and that I had bought a $50 pair of designer jeans for a buck.

When I flunked out of the Crane Department of Music in 1960 I bought a one-way ticket on a freighter to Göteborg and landed, unannounced, on my aunts and stayed with them for six months.

In 1960 dress was important to the older Swedes, and I got in the habit of wearing a tie. I remember hearing my father say, “Som man är klädd blir man hädd”  (“A man is known by the clothes he wears”). When my Aunt Sally came to this country in 1965 to attend one of my weddings, she said that she would refuse to go if I were to get married in my wooden shoes.

Wooden shoes were worn only when you were working. These same shoes, which I wore while doing my student teaching, generated a bit of discussion among my supervisors, but because they were the only shoes I had, allowances were made.

Before the war my father came home covered with stone dust from cutting paving beside the quarry. When the war started, he worked as a carpenter in shipyards, so he always earned a living with a hammer. As soon as I became a teacher I proudly wore my tie so all would know I’d moved up the social ladder. My wife’s father was a teacher, so she asked me to please take off my tie whenever we went anywhere. It wasn’t a step up for her – and doctors didn’t wear ties because they carry germs.

Now, in my dotage, I find a tie to be a bother and have even degenerated to the point where I no longer take off my hat when I go into a store. It will, however, be a while before I wear a baseball cap at a funeral, as is now the habit with high school boys.

Suppose you have a favorite jacket that you’ve worn for years. It has aged gracefully, like your spouse. What kind of person would even consider trading in either one of them for a more fashionable model?

The humble Farmer can be heard Friday nights at 7 on WHPW (97.3 FM) and visited at:

www.thehumblefarmer.com/MainePrivateRadio.html

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