<\/p>\n
I was <\/span><\/strong>a bit stylish in seventh and eight grades.\u00a0I shopped at Mister Jr.\u2019s and Skall\u2019s Men\u2019s Wear at Cedar Center. After eighth grade, I gave up on making it in fashion. I couldn\u2019t cut it \u2014 shopping, fashion and popularity contests.<\/p>\n One of my dad’s friends sold Farah pants. I liked Farah but Farah wasn\u2019t cool. Nice feel but not cool. Lee \u2013- the brand \u2014 was popular. Farah was the continental look \u2014 the greaser thing, like iridescent sharkskin. Italians clung to the continental look for years.\u00a0Jews moved on to the \u201ccollegiate\u201d look \u2014 Lee\u2019s colored jeans.<\/p>\n Ben Skall,<\/strong><\/span> an old man,<\/em> ran Skall\u2019s Men\u2019s Wear. He became a state senator. I gave up white socks to enter Skall\u2019s. I bought black socks with gray rings around the top (Adler brand). Sam McDowell and Hawk Harrelson shopped at Skall\u2019s.<\/p>\n I was in the in-between crowd. I noticed right off in seventh grade half the class was yiddlach<\/em>, and these kids seemed \u201cfast\u201d and could dress, and they would mock you out if you dressed wrong. The dagos, my side of the tracks, dressed like Dean Martin or the Fonz (who came later). I wore a spread-shirt collar. Verboten <\/em>amongst Jews and dagos.<\/em> It had to be button down. So I went to Skall\u2019s.<\/p>\n I wore<\/span> a fisherman\u2019s knit sweater my mom made.\u00a0Homemade was verboten,<\/em> too, I learned. But a girl complimented me on the sweater, so I kept wearing it.\u00a0\u201cNice sweater,\u201d she said. History!<\/p>\n I had a shirt jac and light blue denim pants.\u00a0The shirt jac didn\u2019t tuck in, by design.<\/p>\n Shoes? Pedwin cordovan penny loafers.<\/p>\n Sweaters: Alpaca was the continental look.\u00a0Very Italian and very itchy. The collegiate look was a comfy cashmere-feel V-neck like a color called Summer Wheat.<\/p>\n Underwear? Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was a bit stylish in seventh and eight grades.\u00a0I shopped at Mister Jr.\u2019s and Skall\u2019s Men\u2019s Wear at Cedar Center. After eighth grade, I gave up on making it in fashion. I couldn\u2019t cut it \u2014 shopping, fashion and popularity contests. One of my dad’s friends sold Farah pants. 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-26926","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\/26926","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=26926"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28409,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26926\/revisions\/28409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}