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Too Cool for School
This morning I was out of the house early running errands and yawning. Students were on their way to Stafford Middle School, walking along Oak Street and Margaret Street and South Catherine Street. A lot of them sure looked cool, wearing their baseball caps backwards and sporting sunglasses. Their baggy jeans flopped along with each step they took.
I think we knew how to be cool better back when I was a teenager. Kids today would laugh at our styles and some of the other things we did to be cool. And make no mistake about it -- we were cool!
I remember how happy I was when I opened a present on my thirteenth birthday and found a pair of white bucks staring back at me. By white bucks I don't mean a couple of white deer. I mean the coolest shoes going, the Pat Boone-style white bucks! My white bucks weren't everyday shoes. They were for special occasions like the YMCA Saturday night dances or the dances at the Our Lady of Victory church hall. Or, for wearing to Phil Dubuque's birthday party over on Main Mill Street.
I don't know whatever happened to my white bucks. Maybe they eventually got scuffed and dirty enough that I had to throw them out. Or maybe I simply outgrew them. I'd sure like to have them now. No doubt I'd have them on display as a relic of my past, along with my Little League baseball glove and my OLVA Foxes' high school basketball warmup jersey.
Another thing that made guys cool in my day were sideburns. Growing sideburns showed a little bit of the rebel inside you. Those guys who got to grow those Elvis Presley-like sideburns looked pretty cool in my book. I never got to do that, mostly because Coaches John, Shorty and Billy Flynn didn't think sideburns were cool. Some of the cool older guys like Kenny Leavine and Danny Lucas used to stretch their sideburns out a bit, but we younger guys stood no chance. We pretty much had to have crewcuts like the one worn by Coach John Flynn or Coach Shorty Flynn. At least that's what my Dad thought!
But I found another way to be cool, and that was to buy what we called a black dickie. You could buy this little black neck cloth that you wore under a white shirt. It made it look like you actually had a full shirt under, but you really didn't. It was just the neck part that was covered up. But the girls liked guys with the black dickie under a clean sharp-looking white dress shirt. Or so I thought. Sometimes thinking you are cool is just as good as actually being cool.
Once I got my own car at the age of eighteen I really had a chance to be cool. My black Ford Comet was no big super-powered machine, but with the right accoutrements I knew I had a chance to be one of the coolest guys in Plattsburgh. So I equipped my car with an eight-track stereo system with speakers installed in the back window. And, as if that weren't enough, I bought one of those white stuffed cats with red bulbs for eyes. The stuffed animal was hooked up to my back lights. When I signaled to make a left turn one of the cat's eyes starting blinking. When I put my brakes on, both of the cat's eyes lit up! I didn't drive a Corvette like my cousin Steve Bedard, but I had the coolest Ford Comet in the North Country.
I think you will have to agree that we sure knew how to be cool in our day. Maybe today the kids would laugh at our white bucks, sideburns, black dickies and cats that lit up in our car back window. But you'll never change my mind. There's no way those kids with the baggy jeans and backward baseball caps are cooler than we were!
Comments
COOL was being asked to dance by Jamil El-Reedy at the dance on Friday night and talking about it on Monday in Foxy's class. That and having your hair actually look good after pool class. A virtual impossibility. Now THOSE were the days...
Posted by: Carla Brancato Campbell | May 27, 2007 10:05 PM
Now check out the glory days of early 70's "cool":
Haircut=None
Sideburns=Almost touching at the chin, but too chicken to connect them because then my parents would notice that I had an actual beard!
Aviator sunglasses, faded t-shirt & flare jeans, all bottomed out by Dingo boots! Remember those?
Then the really funny thing is, you'd still recognize me today, but the beard's white and the hair's above the ears...
Posted by: hfw | May 22, 2007 12:28 PM
Rock Around the Clock was the name of the movie with bill haley, out in 1956.
i think this is what american graffiti was based on with john travolta later on.
(Foxy's note: I'm not so sure if you are correct, Cricket, because Doc G seems to think it's from the movie Blackboard Jungle.)
Posted by: Cricket | May 9, 2007 11:10 AM
speaking of the past, someone ask me the other day if i knew where they could get a pair of desert boots. that was the shoe of my time and you just had to have pair. i have seen some replicas, but nothing like the original pair.
Posted by: Cricket | May 9, 2007 11:01 AM
Your nostalgic blogs are always entertaining to read. I have a proposition for you. How about you lace up those white bucks, put on a black dickie under a nice dress shirt, grow out the elvis-like sideburns, and drive around in your Ford Comet with that 8 track player. I'll be wearing my boot cut jeans, a full undershirt under a polo shirt, drive around in my nice car with an MP3 player. Then we can ask some of my female college buddies who is cooler? How does that sound?
(Foxy's note: Great idea, Mark T -- but I'm old enough to have learned one important thing about challenges: Always know who your competition is! I'd stand no chance against you and your jeans, polo shirt, nice car and damn MP3 player!)
Posted by: Mark T | May 4, 2007 7:34 PM
Foxy, Miney is correct about the cars.....mercury= comet and ford = falcon and I have owned both in my time.
(Foxy's note: I knew a Classic Cruiser guy would come to the rescue!)
Posted by: Bill Carr | May 3, 2007 6:30 PM
Hi Foxy; The heat is still on in good old florida! Mid 80's daily! Need rain ! Gas prices in this area are about 2.93 to 3.15 per gallon! I don't know if anybody in the area received the e-mail about the Not buying or pumping gas one day this month! On the 15th I think that's the date! It might wake the thieves up who are making millions of dollars! (Gas Companies) Look at Exxon-Mobile&Citgo Profits Last Year!!!!!!!!!! Also I know change is good! But I prefer the old newspaper on-line format!
Posted by: Lenny Smallacombe | May 3, 2007 6:24 AM
I think if I could "turn back time," I would have wanted to be a teenager in the early 60's. I'm not that far off, but far enough that I missed what y'all (a little left-over accent from my vacation!) are talking about. It sounds like some really good times and I bet those side burns looked great on Kenny Leavine! If I may move on for a moment - WHAT IS UP WITH THESE GAS PRICES? All the news agencies talk about the what, but no one seems to know the WHY. What am I missing?
(Foxy's note: Good point about the gas prices, miss d. I think we might peak at $4 by the end of the summer! Who gets the blame?)
Posted by: miss d | May 2, 2007 9:27 PM
Answer: Blackboard Jungle. Rival gangs were the stompers and the diggers. Which also started the local gang, The Crickers
(Foxy's note: Leave it to "Doc" to know all this stuff!)
Posted by: doc | May 2, 2007 12:06 PM
Here's a lttle trivia for you. Going back to the good old days, can you name the movie that Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" was first introduced? Which I believe to be the beginning of Rock and Roll, White Bucks, Blue Suede Shoes; engineer boots; peg pants and the famous D.A. hair cut.
(Foxy's note: I've seen the movie - an old black-and-white one, right? - but I can't think of the title. Maybe a reader can come up with this one!)
Posted by: Docg | May 2, 2007 7:15 AM
Foxy, I can remember my first 3 speed bike from Wards. I put streamers from the hand grips and found a great use for an old deck of card and some wooden clothes pins. I put a lot of miles on that bike it opened a new world! I was all over the city and yet back when my parents wanted me to be. My first car was a white 58 Chev that leaked tranmission fluid but it was wheels!
Posted by: Beef | May 1, 2007 9:15 AM
Being cool during the late sixties and my late teens years was to emulate the "all American look".
That meant penny loafers, probaby 'Bass Weejuns", Levis with leg lengths slightly above the shoe, madras shirts and of course no socks.
Being brought up in Montreal and English speaking, we wanted to be culturally separate from our French- Canadian neighbours.
Daytrips to Plattsburgh and venues such as The Grandway, Merkels and National Army Stores outfitted us properly.
Posted by: norm stotland | May 1, 2007 7:49 AM
Wasn't the Comet a Mercury and the Ford was a Falcon? Even though I was an athlete and dressed like one, I sure did dig Paul Marshall's mechanic boots - or cricker boots as my Dad called them. Anyway, for what it's worth, I think the coolest generation was my Grandparents generation - in the 1910's and 1920's. Get on the internet and check out their fashion - & that generation partied way better than we ever did.
(Foxy's note: You may be right, Miney, about the Comet. I'll talk to my buddies in the Champlain Valley Classic Cruisers Car Club, and they'll set me straight. Also, yesterday at McSweeney's I saw your Dad and sister. They both say hi!)
Posted by: Miney Rowlson | May 1, 2007 7:20 AM
Foxy,
I remember that there were "clicks" at PHS and you dressed and had hair styles based on whether you were a "jock", "hood" or "brain". Also kids dressed differently and had different haircuts especially if you were from the Air Base. My Dad cut my hair and my brothers and he had only one setting - burr-cut! He did let it grow out for my senior picture. But I liked it short because it was more comfortable during football and track. Of course, I had two boys but they wouldn't let me near them with hair clippers! In fact, they had to go to hair-dressers for their style haircuts (way more than a $2 dollar haircut) and then they would wear a baseball cap backwards when they left the shop.
We were the "coolest" and the show "Happy Days" always reminds me of what we were like back then - "Hey".
Paul
Posted by: Paul Shirley - PHS - Class of '63 | April 30, 2007 11:09 AM