Wind Suits and Dickies

As a child, I had these neighbors that were the coolest people ever. While my parents were listening to Doug Stone, these neighbors P&D we will call them, were listening to the Beatles, CSNY, and the Counting Crows. They drank long island iced teas while jamming to Pink Floyd. This made them completely awesome. I remember one time P&D got me a wind suit for my birthday. This wind suit was so beautiful, I thought. I actually went to get it tailored. Yes, you read this correctly. I got a wind suit tailored. Getting a wind suit tailored should tell you two things about me: A) I was that tall and skinny that a wind suit was noticeably ill fitting enough to get it tailored and B) I cared that much about a wind suit to put forth the effort to take it to a tailor. Granted I was probably in fifth grade, so there was a parent enabling me by driving me to Dunlaps to get this done. It is still completely and utterly ridiculous that I would wear this wind suit along with a turtleneck to a school dance. A wind suit is totally appropriate for certain situations. Now I can see, a school dance is not one of those situations.

Turtlenecks were so cumbersome. This was probably one of the few times I went for the full turtleneck. Most of the time, and by most of the time I mean practically every day between October and March, I sported a dickie. A dickie, for those of you who are unaware, is a mock turtleneck. It has the same great style and flare as a turtleneck but not the bother of the oh so obtrusive sleeves. It is just a neck piece really. I had one in every color. The best part about my dickie collection was that it was not just me who wore them. My entire family was proud to sport a dickie. I don’t mean that we were the family that all wore dickies in our family picture. Heavens no. We were too cheap to buy that many matching dickies. We just shared. Mom, dad, sister, and myself all shared the same green dickie and at Christmas time this became a difficult task. So many flashy Christmas sweaters that would benefit from the addition of a dickie. We made due. I finally gave up the dickie…that is a story for another day.