The Pocket Handkerchief

[Old Hippie]

I thank the lads here who are helping clods like me transfer our scrunged kilt wearing lives into something more sophisticated and proper. You remind me of how my grandfater helped me as a boy--good on ya!

'At's the thing, i'nt it?

My father was a career soldier. A place for everything and everything in its place. I inherited a compulsive habit of cleaning my nails when I think nobody's looking. (Which means when it counts, they'll be a little dirty...)

My mother grew up poorer than dirt. She put great emphasis on being "neat" in one's dress and presentation. I learned it's easier to dress "up" the social scale than it is to dress "down" the social scale. I also manage to scrape by in a place where the standards of dress are quite relaxed -- which suits me as I often stop on the way to work to feed sheep, and again when I get home in the evening (as well as dumping accumulated buckets of compost before heading up the hill to the house).

I'm not alone here in having an interest in becoming a better dresser. I am uncomfortably aware that I don't own anything more formal than "business casual" at the moment, and while I have not attended a truly formal occasion for 10 years, I have lately begun to conceive the need for what I believe is called "daywear" -- items at least a little dressy-looking for events to which I may be called. Maybe "evening" wear, though what I see of that looks far more formal than my life calls for.

So thanks to our Fashion Brigade for giving us lots of "teachable moments."

:ootd:

[pdcorlis]

My mother grew up poorer than dirt. She put great emphasis on being "neat" in one's dress and presentation...

Its funny the lessons we learn. My mother and father also grew up dirt poor but always stressed to us kids that "Good manners cost nothing." A lesson I passed on to our children.

[thescot]

Its funny the lessons we learn. My mother and father also grew up dirt poor but always stressed to us kids that "Good manners cost nothing." A lesson I passed on to our children.

Anyone my age probably has parents who grew up poor; it was the Great Depression after all.

But, my grandfather, a railroad engineer, and my other grandfather, a railroad engineer, and my father, a railroad engineer, always dressed appropriately and insisted on good manners as well. Being "tacky" was a great crime according to one grandmother.

When I was a small boy, my living grandfather would come to collect me, and we would "go downtown" wearing our best coats and ties if not suits, have our shoes shined at the barber shop, and attend to our affairs while wearing very smart snap brim hats. (I was about 5 or 6 when this started.)

And I think we always had pocket handkerchiefs.

[Deil the Yin]

Yeeeah... I can remember as a youngin' my dad using a cotton handkerchief and thinking how disgusting it was! Now I've grown up to think of nothing but kleenex or other tissue for such purposes. I guess I'm a wee bit too anal-retentive and practical to wear a real hanky for show, though they do look smart, I must say.

And an excellent thread all the same.

That is why I carry 3 with my two in the sporran one in the pocket.

Too right.

We have to keep the saying in mind about silks "one for showin and one for blowin".

Har, har! That's a guid ern!

I agree. That's what the tie is for.

Ah, the good ol' days, eh wot?