Dress code violations

There’s been a lot on the news lately about public schools instituting a dress code--mostly to get the guys out of those saggy, huge, underwear exposing jeans and the girls to tuck it in a bit. I’ve been “on vacation” for four weeks and I’ve seen every violation from skimpy to slovenly to salacious--but mostly on people my age or older! When I was a child, “slovenly” was an older adult with only one working strap on the bib overalls and tobacco juice dribbling down the chin, or a blue haired woman wearing a food stained, feed-sack apron with a run in her stockings. Today, that is practically formal wear for the over-60 crowd at leisure.

Honey, it’s OK to cover up your sagging saddle bags, lumpy knees and purple spider veins--truly it is, please! The wrinkled look was in style a few years ago, but that was for 100% linen. In polyester cotton with a touch of lycra, it’s just messy. Ladies and Gentlemen! Where is the pride, dignity and good taste you had in the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1990s? The other day at a public event on the lakefront I saw a woman who must have been a stunning prom queen in 1949--very long legs and a lovely figure with beautiful white hair. But in short shorts? Oh my. She wasn’t wearing glasses, but I was. Those kinds of dimples are for old Shirley Temple movies.

This was OK for the 1950s
“Hang on droopy” as we sing at football games in Columbus. As the waist expands, and you purchase capris or shorts to accommodate, there’s nothing to fill out the back of the pants. I’m walking behind you or sitting in the aisle seat at the auditorium. It’s not pretty.

The younger people, however, are cleaning up their acts. I’ve seen some gorgeous 30-something moms pushing baby strollers, wearing cute circle skirts and full coverage darling t-shirts and sparkling sandals. They look fabulous. Then comes granny--often 10 years younger than me. She looks like flattened fauna, as we used to say in the vet library. I’ve even seen some mini-skirts on the 20-somethings that look great--but that’s the last cut off for looking good in that 1960s fashion retread. The younger women are heading for the dock in beach cover-ups; Oh! that their grandmothers were doing the same.

Ben Stein laments the demise of the neck-tie in the business world, but he apparently hasn’t taken a look at vacation wear.