Flashback Friday # 179

The New Suit

Hello to my old friends who are brave enough to wander to my site to read the menutia of my past. If you're new here, welcome to my past.

As graduation time rolled around during my Freshman year, the Student Council advisor, Mrs. Cherrytree, announced that all the underclass Student Council members would be required to be at the graduation cerimony to pass out programs. She told the girls that they were to be in nice skirts & blouses. Then she told the guys that she wanted all of us to wear suits.

A suit? Yeah, right. I never went anywhere that required dressing up, so I didn't even own a pair of dress slacks. Levi's & Dickey's were what comprised my wardrobe.

I told Mom that the Student Council advisor wanted us to all wear suits. "We'll just have to find you a suit then.", she said. That weekend we made the trip to Westerville to check out what we could find in the mall. We found what we were looking for at a store called "The County Seat".

Remember, this was still the 70's ('79 to be exact). All suits, at least those in our price range, were made of polyester. Saturday Night Fever had been a hit only two years earlier. All the suits we saw had a decidedly disco flair to them. We finally found one that not only fit, but was in our price range. It was similar to the picture below, but it was a black jacket with grey stitching on the back that began at both shoulders and came to a point at the spine. There were four such "V" stitches on the back of the jacket. The back of the pants had the identical stitching.

I also got a baby blue shirt to go along with it. I was styling.

Graduation Day rolled around and I spiffed up with my new threads. I was wearing my black shoes for the last time (as they were getting too small. Complete the ensemble with a shag haircut and you've got a pretty good idea what I looked like.

It just happened to be a scorcher of a day. temperatures in the 90's. I'm wearing a black suit, in bright sunshine with no shade nearby. I nearly roasted.

I fit into that suit until my senior year. It was one of the first suits that I wore to church (but that's a whole nuther story).