Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth (or when H-haid was in high school), teenagers would go about to any length to break the school dress code.
Two particular parts of the code were particularly offensive to the younger H-haid.
Boys had to tuck their shirttails in, and they had to wear socks.
They also had to wear belts, but that wasn’t an issue for Hammerhaid. He had to wear something to keep his pants up. If your pants sagged in those days, it meant you were wearing somebody’s hand-me-downs, and we didn’t want to give that impression.
You didn’t want clothes that looked like something a ragpicker found at the city dump either. Now you have to pay, handsomely, for that look.
Well anyway.
Going without socks was H-haid’s form of rebellion. You were supposed to wear them with gym shoes, regular shoes and even sandals. Yep, even sandals. The closest thing to a modern athletic shoe was Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars. Yep, those canvas low tops were comfortable without socks, but not at school.
Then there was the day Hammerhaid got called down for wearing his wing-tips without socks.
“Mr. West, you are wearing socks with those wing-tips?” asked Principal John Swafford.
Gulp, do you lie or do you tell the truth? Ol’ H-haid just nodded his head up and down until his brain rattled. Mr. Swafford let it pass as he streaked off to his locker.
So much for rebellion.
And there were those collarless Henley shirts that were new and very popular in the day.
These shirts had two or three buttons and had piping instead of a collar. A wine-colored shirt with blue or white piping was a popular look. They were meant for the top button to stay upbuttoned and for the shirttail to be out and not tucked in.
If you wore these shirts with the top button fastened and the shirttail tucked, you looked like the biggest spazz in the world. (There wasn’t nerds or geeks in those days. Spazz was the operative term.)
After a few nervous moments, H-haid and most of his classmates discovered you could get by with wearing the Henley shirts untucked, unless you acted a fool and drew the attention of a coach or some other “enforcer.”
Long hair was the big bug-a-boo in those days anyway. If your hair touched your collar, you were bound to be a hood, musician or some sort of malcontent. That was just about the ultimate in rebellion.
Blue jeans were a no-no, too, with the blue jean craze just beginning.
Girls, on the other hand, had a different set of issues ... hair color and skirt length.
If you were mousey brown one day, you better not come in fire engine red the next day. If you did, a trip to the office was probably in order. Hair color changes had to be gradual and subtle and were best made during summer vacation.
In the mid-60s (1965 to be exact), a British fashion designer took hems way above the knee and invented the miniskirt. This was one fashion revolution that didn’t take long to hit the United States and even the Bible belt with skirts eight inches or more above the knee.
Skirts, even dresses, were being chopped off and hemmed up often without mom’s knowledge. Girls would leave home in one outfit and change once they got to school.
Girls who were spotted wearing a skirt that was too short had to pass through some sort of humiliating ritual measuring in the female assistant principal’s office.
Eventually a compromise was met just in time for those ridiculous midi-skirts.
Well anyway. It was done without passing a school uniform policy. That wasn’t even considered.
That-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-right. |
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