{"id":14193,"date":"2013-04-03T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=14193"},"modified":"2014-09-05T22:07:33","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T02:07:33","slug":"stylin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/03\/stylin\/","title":{"rendered":"STYLIN’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I was <\/strong><\/span>somewhat stylish in seventh and eight grades.\u00a0 I shopped at Mister Jr.’s and Skall\u2019s Men’s Wear at Cedar Center shopping center.\u00a0 After eighth grade, I gave up.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t cut it — shopping and fashion.<\/p>\n

My dad had a friend who sold the Farah pants line in Cleveland.\u00a0 I liked Farah, but Farah wasn\u2019t fashionable.\u00a0 Nice feel, but not too cool.\u00a0 Lee \u2013- the brand — was cool. Farah was part of\u00a0 the Continental look — the greaser look. Iridescent sharkskin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Greaser \/ Collegiate<\/p><\/div>\n

Italians clung to the Continental look for years.\u00a0 Jews got out of it quickly and moved to the \u201ccollegiate\u201d look —\u00a0 Lee\u2019s.\u00a0 Like colored jeans.\u00a0 This hurt Farah.<\/p>\n

Ben Skall,<\/strong><\/span> an old guy,<\/em> owned Skall’s Men’s Wear.\u00a0 He became a state senator. I had to give up white socks to enter Skall’s world; I bought black socks with gray rings around the top (Adler brand).<\/p>\n

Sam McDowell and Hawk Harrelson shopped at Skall\u2019s.<\/p>\n

I didn’t quite make the in-crowd at school.\u00a0 I made the in-between crowd.\u00a0 My problem (one of them): I\u00a0 came from a hick elementary school \u2013- a place with plenty shark-skinned Italians and few Jews. When I arrived at junior high, I noticed right off half the school was yiddlach<\/em>, and these kids were by and large “fast,”\u00a0 and they could dress, and they could “mock you out” if you dressed wrong. I had no idea what to wear!\u00a0 I had a spread-shirt collar. That was verboten<\/em>. It had to be button down.\u00a0 I went to Skall’s.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Wrong (L) \/ Right (R).\u00a0 Bert Stratton, early 1960s<\/p><\/div>\n

I wore<\/strong><\/span> a fisherman\u2019s knit sweater my mom made.\u00a0 Homemade was verboten<\/em> too, but a girl complimented me, so I kept wearing the sweater.\u00a0 \u201cNice sweater,” she said.\u00a0 (If she had said “Nice<\/em> sweater”\u00a0 — accent on the “nice” — that would have been a putdown.)\u00a0 Home run.\u00a0 Thanks, Mom.<\/p>\n

I bought a shirt jac and light blue denim pants.\u00a0 The shirt jac didn\u2019t tuck in.<\/p>\n

Shoes:\u00a0 Pedwin loafers — black,\u00a0 cordovan, or\u00a0 olive green.\u00a0 Choose one.\u00a0 Cordovan was M.O.R. (middle of the road).<\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/span> bought<\/span><\/strong> Levi\u2019s \u2013 not Lee \u2013 jeans. Cream-colored.\u00a0 Not blue jeans.\u00a0 Blue jeans weren’t permitted at my junior high.<\/p>\n

The rules about clothes and fashion confounded me for several years. For instance, shirts could have box patterns, but not big boxes.\u00a0 If you wore a box pattern the size of a checker board, you were dead.\u00a0 I avoided box patterns and wore striped shirts — always appropriate.<\/p>\n

One more thing . . .\u00a0 sweaters: Alpaca was the anchor of the Continental look.\u00a0 Alpaca sweaters were itchy and very Italian.\u00a0 The comfy V-neck sweater was the collegiate look.\u00a0 I had a gold V-neck called Summer Wheat.\u00a0 (Like my cereal, which is Autumn Wheat.)<\/p>\n

I dropped<\/strong><\/span> out of the fashion whirl about ninth grade. I hung out mostly with nerds.\u00a0 “Nerds”\u00a0 wasn\u2019t even a word.\u00a0 Neither was \u201cgeek.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dufuses?\u00a0 Dips? We were anti-social and afraid of girls.\u00a0\u00a0 We were hopeless, so why shop?<\/p>\n

This is ancient history.<\/p>\n

What about knickers?<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Footnote: Greasers were called “racks” at my school.\u00a0 Derived from “racketeers,” I\u00a0 think. <\/em><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for more on the guys I went to school with [a Klezmer Guy rerun, from 11\/30\/11].<\/em><\/p>\n

And please read the info below this illustration.<\/em> \"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0—<\/div>\n
Matzo and Motown.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\"\"

Tamar Gray<\/p><\/div>\n

The Klezmer Guy trio plays Nighttown<\/span><\/a>, Cleveland Hts., 7 p.m. Tues.,\u00a0 April 23.\u00a0 $10.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan Douglass, keyboard and vocals, Bert Stratton, clarinet and prose; and Tamar Gray,\u00a0 mostly singing Motown vocals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamar Gray’s uncle is Slide Hampton, the jazz trombone player.\u00a0 Tamar’s brother is Pharez Whitted, a Chicago jazz trumpeter.\u00a0 Tamar’s mother was part of the Hampton Sisters of Indiana.\u00a0 In other words, Tamar has yikhes<\/em> (musical lineage).<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of yikhes<\/em> (and nepotism), Jack Stratton is 75% of the way toward reaching his latest Kickstarter goal.\u00a0 Check out his\u00a0 Kickstarter project here<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 It’s about Vulfpeck, Jack’s German-Jewish band.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was somewhat stylish in seventh and eight grades.\u00a0 I shopped at Mister Jr.’s and Skall\u2019s Men’s Wear at Cedar Center shopping center.\u00a0 After eighth grade, I gave up.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t cut it — shopping and fashion. My dad had a friend who sold the Farah pants line in Cleveland.\u00a0 I liked Farah, but Farah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-of-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14193"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21246,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14193\/revisions\/21246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}