You know, nowadays we all take wearing jeans for granted. You have your cute tight ones that make you look hip and then the ragged ones you only wear to work in the garden. You have your fat jeans and your skinny jeans and the ones you hope someday you can get back into. I remember my first pair of jeans that I could actually wear to school — college that is. Yes, back in my day, girls had to wear dresses or skirts to school, even if you had to walk a mile in the snow. Uphill both ways — it didn’t matter. I wore a lot of knee socks to keep my legs warm. I always walked to school, because school was in your neighborhood back then and you were there with all your neighborhood friends. No buses for us.
When I went to Herron Art School in 1967, I wore my first jeans to school (they were really light blue — more like a duck cloth material — not the true blue jean material of today). I felt so grown up and quite the rebel to be able to wear them to school. Mine never had any holes or worn spots like we like today and I probably even ironed them — I can’t remember, but back then you had to iron everything. Permanent press just wasn’t out yet.
There were other students at Herron who didn’t wash their jeans at all and took pride in just how much oil paint and acrylics they could get on them. Oh, and the bell bottom jeans were always so long on me that if I didn’t hem them to keep from tripping, I’d lose most of the bell part. You just didn’t find petite sizes back then.
I can remember the fall of 1970, when I was doing my student teaching at Manual High School and the girls protested and walked out of school for not being able to wear pants. I watched them from the second story art class window and felt proud that they were standing up for their rights. It was ridiculous to think that pants weren’t allowed. The girls won the protest and that’s when schools allowed girls to wear pants, but only dress pants.
One great thing about jeans is that they go with everything — you can dress them up with a frilly blouse or dress them down with a T-shirt. They are so versatile, but not as comfortable as my sweats, which we all know are the most comfortable pant ever made, but that’s a whole article by itself. (I just saw this morning on Good Morning America they have come up with a new sweat pant that looks just like jeans – best of both worlds)
With the low hip hugger jeans now so fashionable there are a few woman who should not be wearing them — it’s not a pretty sight to see the gap between short top and flappy waistline.
With our new newspaper and our “comfort” dress code at the office, I have more jeans now than I’ve ever had in my life. I still don’t wear jeans all that often to special gatherings like weddings, showers and graduations. When you see a woman my age not wearing jeans and kinda of dressed up don’t hold it against us, we didn’t grow up wearing them everywhere like you do. I did stop at a funeral home this past year wearing jeans and felt terrible, but I didn’t have time to change. No one cares now, we are a casual society. I do miss dressing up sometimes, but I hate panty hose (this was written over 15 years ago and I don’t even own a pair of panty hose now) so you won’t see me often in a dress. I do wear dresses to church — just can’t do pants in front of God!