Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990 TAG: 9006150225
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Ned Bane
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By such a standard, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter can't play in the same league with the Fourth. Those big three holidays are first-rate in providing days off from school - but they exact a heavy toll. Generally, the payback comes in having to wear some fancy duds that feel like rock wool and make you wish Mom and Pop were a little tighter with their money.
"Let's put on your nice new suit Ned," Mom warbled. "Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Bob will be here for Christmas dinner soon." Now getting slicked up for Grandma and Grandpa could be a worthwhile investment. They'd slip you quarters, dimes and maple sugar candy while Mom and Pop were pivoting about the house looking like the Tin Woodman and wishing they didn't have to wear nice new suits either.
Putting on a nice new suit for Uncle Bob had no redeeming value. He hadn't parted with a quarter since the advent of spats. He'd show up once a year looking like the ghost of Jacob Marley, smelling like the tool shed, and smiling with great glee as he pinched your knee until you doubled over.
Though the nice new suit was the lubricant that helped Grandma and Grandpa part with quarters more easily, they'd probably still give you money even if you dressed like Buckwheat. But in that case you ran the risk of having them give the money to your parents and tell them that you need a nice new suit.
Buying a nice new suit was no holiday. If you lived in the hinterlands of Southwest Virginia, your folks would pack you in the car and drive up U.S. 11 to Glen Minnick clothing store. At the store, people would call you by your first name, smile a lot, poke and measure you and make you parade around in britches with legs at least a foot too long. All the while, a woman with a mouthful of pins would be chasing you. (I once tried this at home, chasing my brother around with a mouthful of pins, and I got the bejeebers whomped out of me.)
The store indeed made a nice new suit, well-crafted, and it lasted to become a nice old suit. If I hadn't grown much, I'd probably still be looking like Buster Brown.
The nice new suit gave Mom and Pop bragging rights because they'd probably coughed up two weeks' pay for it. But before they could pack you in this combination of wool and galluses, there was one final touch - the barber. This was a man who for two bits would make your head look like a fuzzy cue ball.
I remember those days all too well, and come Fourth of July I'm going to let my daughter grub in the dirt with her jeans and a Pulaski YMCA T-shirt. Hey, I'm a sympathetic guy. I sure wish it were Christmas though; I'd like Mom and Pop to see her dressed to the nines with that Shirley Temple look.
by CNB