STYLIN’

I was somewhat stylish in seventh and eight grades.  I shopped at Mister Jr.’s and Skall’s Men’s Wear at Cedar Center shopping center.  After eighth grade, I gave up.  I couldn’t cut it — shopping and fashion.

My dad had a friend who sold the Farah pants line in Cleveland.  I liked Farah, but Farah wasn’t fashionable.  Nice feel, but not too cool.  Lee –- the brand — was cool. Farah was part of  the Continental look — the greaser look. Iridescent sharkskin.

Greaser / Collegiate

Italians clung to the Continental look for years.  Jews got out of it quickly and moved to the “collegiate” look —  Lee’s.  Like colored jeans.  This hurt Farah.

Ben Skall, an old guy, owned Skall’s Men’s Wear.  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).

Sam McDowell and Hawk Harrelson shopped at Skall’s.

I didn’t quite make the in-crowd at school.  I made the in-between crowd.  My problem (one of them): I  came from a hick elementary school –- 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, and these kids were by and large “fast,”  and they could dress, and they could “mock you out” if you dressed wrong. I had no idea what to wear!  I had a spread-shirt collar. That was verboten. It had to be button down.  I went to Skall’s.

Wrong (L) / Right (R).  Bert Stratton, early 1960s

I wore a fisherman’s knit sweater my mom made.  Homemade was verboten too, but a girl complimented me, so I kept wearing the sweater.  “Nice sweater,” she said.  (If she had said “Nice sweater”  — accent on the “nice” — that would have been a putdown.)  Home run.  Thanks, Mom.

I bought a shirt jac and light blue denim pants.  The shirt jac didn’t tuck in.

Shoes:  Pedwin loafers — black,  cordovan, or  olive green.  Choose one.  Cordovan was M.O.R. (middle of the road).

I bought Levi’s – not Lee – jeans. Cream-colored.  Not blue jeans.  Blue jeans weren’t permitted at my junior high.

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

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

I dropped out of the fashion whirl about ninth grade. I hung out mostly with nerds.  “Nerds”  wasn’t even a word.  Neither was “geek.”

Dufuses?  Dips? We were anti-social and afraid of girls.   We were hopeless, so why shop?

This is ancient history.

What about knickers?

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Footnote: Greasers were called “racks” at my school.  Derived from “racketeers,” I  think.

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

And please read the info below this illustration.

Tamar Gray

The Klezmer Guy trio plays Nighttown, Cleveland Hts., 7 p.m. Tues.,  April 23.  $10. 

Alan Douglass, keyboard and vocals, Bert Stratton, clarinet and prose; and Tamar Gray,  mostly singing Motown vocals.

Tamar Gray’s uncle is Slide Hampton, the jazz trombone player.  Tamar’s brother is Pharez Whitted, a Chicago jazz trumpeter.  Tamar’s mother was part of the Hampton Sisters of Indiana.  In other words, Tamar has yikhes (musical lineage).

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Speaking of yikhes (and nepotism), Jack Stratton is 75% of the way toward reaching his latest Kickstarter goal.  Check out his  Kickstarter project here.  It’s about Vulfpeck, Jack’s German-Jewish band.

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