What Happened....

[Inkstainedwretch]

At least back then it was just an undershirt. Now it's known universally as a "wife-beater," so dubbed by the police because every time they got called on a domestic dispute, that's what the guy who opened the door when they knocked was always wearing.

 

[Paisley]

The tackiest aspirational/entitled thing I've ever seen was when the office manager of a place where I used to work had a family emergency (her husband suddenly and unexpectedly died). Her friends set up a web page for donations for housecleaning, catered meals and lawn care. This, even though she had enough money to see a financial advisor, and her mother and sister came to help her. (Her mother was a very down-to-earth, no-nonsense junior high teacher I took one or two classes from.) Even when I fractured my arm and injured my teeth, I didn't expect anyone to do any of that for me--and I've have been embarrassed to ask for money. My parents were blue collar, and I can't imagine them ever asking for someone to give them money to clean their house or cook their meals.

 

[LizzieMaine]

At least back then it was just an undershirt. Now it's known universally as a "wife-beater," so dubbed by the police because every time they got called on a domestic dispute, that's what the guy who opened the door when they knocked was always wearing.

I really hate that phrase, as does every woman of every age that I know. Call it an undershirt, call it an A-shirt, call it a vest, call it a singlet, call it a Stanley Kowalski, but if you have any sense of decency at all don't call it that. And this isn't "Pee Cee," it's basic human respect.

 

[Stearmen]

I really hate that phrase, as does every woman of every age that I know. Call it an undershirt, call it an A-shirt, call it a vest, call it a singlet, call it a Stanley Kowalski, but if you have any sense of decency at all don't call it that. And this isn't "Pee Cee," it's basic human respect.

Funny, around the West, until recently, I had only heard of them being referred to as Tank Tops! Not sure if that goes back to WWII?

 

[ChiTownScion]

In my generation the single strongest line of division between the working class and the middle class was college. It was *assumed* from birth as a matter of course that a true middle class child would go on to college. It was never taken for granted among the working class -- it might be hoped for, or aspired to, but it was never simply assumed, and if it didn't happen it certainly wasn't a stigma. It was a normal thing to go to work full time right out of high school to put the buck on the table, because that's what most people like you did.

It was preached to me as long as I can remember that the only two *real* options were a college education or a journeyman's card in a building trade union. I was told that I was bright (likely more intelligent than I was in reality) and that I should apply myself in school and get an education. My mom was really impressed by the value that her Jewish friends and neighbors placed upon higher education. Dad was definitely blue collar, but that was a term of pride. It conveyed a can- do reality that the "junior executive" types in grey suits who rode the commuter train downtown (who, we were told, actually carried a liverwurst sandwich in their ubiquitous attache' cases) could never match- and likely a higher annual income. He said so on several occasions.

The word became flesh as to how committed they actually were to my education as I advanced in high school. These "lower earners" with the attache' cases all seemed to have set aside funds for their kids' higher education: I was given a melodramatic speech about how he couldn't afford to do much more than "help me out." Translation: I was expected to work my arse off working as many piddling part time and summer jobs as I could, to fund an education at a college of my parents' choice... and they'd throw a few buck in my direction- for which I was expected to express eternal gratitude. It got to the point where they were told to keep their money.

I ended up working my way through college and law school: their contributions were minimal. I ended up where I wanted as result of a lot of hard work (and a lot more a result of just damn good fortune and the decency of employers who were willing to give me a chance when I needed it), but I have to look back and wonder if that same blue collar can- do chip on the shoulder attitude didn't have a lot to do with it as well.

The stock situation we're all familiar with is a boot recruit addressing his D.I. as "sir," and being scolded, "I am NOT a 'sir:' I EARN my pay!" Well, I think that a lot of working class people wear that as well. And the more that some try to beat that out of them, the more they wear it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Our family wasn't particularly well educated, and it wasn't particularly emphasized. My grandmother was the first member of any branch of our family, anywhere, to graduate high school, in 1930. My grandfather dropped out in the eighth grade to go to work -- first with his father, then in a barrel factory, then with his dance band, then on the WPA, then on the docks, and finally, when he was almost forty, he got a chance to take over the gas station, which he ran for the rest of his life.

The thing was, this wasn't seen as a "tough life." It was seen as a *normal* life, because that's how everybody we knew lived -- people like us didn't grow up to become, or even want to become, lawyers or doctors or professors, or, god forbid, politicians -- we grew up to work at hands-on jobs in small towns, because that was our blood, as far back as anyone could count. It wasn't that we disliked or distrusted The Upper Orders, for the most part -- they just weren't *us.* They were people who lived on streets where we didn't go, who interacted with a world that wasn't ours. We didn't admire them or see any reason to want to be like them. They didn't have any particular interest in our way of life, and we didn't have any particular interest in theirs. And that's just how it was.

In my graduating class in high school, I think only about a third of the kids went on to college, and of my crowd of friends, I know only three who actually got degrees. All were from classic middle-class backgrounds -- one had a dad who was a doctor, one was an executive at the chemical plant, and one was in civil service. More kids in my class went into the military than went on to college -- and the rest of us just went to work.

If I had to sum up the most important lesson I learned growing up it was the example of my grandfather: he believed in his community, and he was satisfied with being a part of it. He had friends who'd hang around the station shooting the bull, he belonged to the Knights of Pythias and was a volunteer fireman, he'd sit out on the porch at night listening to the ball game, and that was all he needed to be content. He could have done without having to kowtow to Summer People, but he saw that as part of the cost of life on the Maine coast, not something he could have avoided by rising to a higher level of the world. When I look around me today and see all the PhD museum directors and Development Officers and Executive Directors and Funding Coordinators and Boards of Directors having to shamelessly truckle to the sons and daughters of the same Summer People my grandfather pumped gas for and cussed out under his breath, I know he was right. Don't matter if it's a tiled bathroom with a golden seat or a one-holer in the backyard, life is still full of a lot of you-know-what.

To be honest, I wouldn't give up the experiences I've had for anything. I've been coast-to-coast on a bus, twice, and seen things you'll never see on the tourist tracks, I've seen what really goes on in factories, I've been a reporter and have seen senators and governors and presidential candidates pick their noses and scratch their crotches when they didn't think anyone was looking, I've done all kinds of other interesting crap, and I've been a part of my community in a way that I find very satisfying. What more is there?

 

[Edward]

Has anyone here seen anyone wearing a frock coat or a morning coat (tail coat) aside from a wedding, and in person? I don't even remember the last time I saw anyone wearing a dinner jacket. I've never worn one in my life.

Morning coats pretty much prevailed over frock coats in the UK by the 30s, though the latter has been cropping up in various versions at weddings in the last twenty years or so. Outside of weddings, I think I've only seen goths in frock coats. Morning dress, however, can be seen on a number of other occasions - establishment funerals, big horse racing events, anything involving the royals, typically. I think it's marginally more common than in the US - though not much. Just in the last ten years or so I've seen a rise in the number of men buying a bespoke or made to measure (the latter more common) lounge suit to get married in, the logic most commonly being 'I'd rather buy something I can wear again than pay out to hire once'. I suspect this has a lot to do with the tighter economic conditions a lot of folks have been in for much of the last ten years, evne if it oes seem slightly counterintuitive.

Black tie is still fairly common here in London (inevitably, much more so than the rest of the UK); at this time of year, there's rarely a night goes past when I don't see half adozen folks at least in black tie on the tube when I'm on my way home from work. White tie, by comparison, is almost dead. As for stroller as opposed to full morning dress, you'll only see 'black lounge' once in a blue moon if it's not on an undertaker or a freemason.

One major thing that helped to kill the hat in the 1950s was automotive styling -- the long, low silhouette pushed by the Boys in the latter half of the fifties made it increasingly difficult for a tall man to sit in a car with a hat on.

Likewise, I'm sure car ownership becoming a norm - thus less timed out in the exposed air as well - was a distinct factor. That said, here in the UK going hatless was becoming fashionable as early as the thirties, a good generation before car ownership became something to which the average working man could realistically aspire.

Standards and definitions change over the years but luxurious and comfortable are not necessarily the same thing. A large house a hundred or two hundred years ago could be luxurious but still be cold and drafty in the winter and hot and stuffy in the summer. When we visited London a couple of years ago and toured Buckingham Palace, we were surprised to note that they actually opened the windows when it was a warm, dry day. I don't know that it is air conditioned, although I suspect it is comfortably heated in the winter.

Of course, you only get to see a tiny fraction of Buck House on the public tours; it is plausible that the small fraction of the place that is actually inhabited by the royals has had a system installed. I'd be surprised, though. Central heating is, in the UK, the equivalent of air con - precious few people have the latter. I've only ever experienced it in the office myself. The climate in the UK being such that there are rarely days on which aircon is all that big of a deal (I've not yet switched it on in my office this year), there's never been much of a demand for it. Also, the royals spend most of the Summer months on holiday in Scotland, which probably negates any call for it in the palace.

The old Big Houses certainly were uncomfortable places for much of the twentieth century. Post WW1, with death duties having crippled many of the old families (the upper classes may well have been shooed straight into the officer roles in the Great War, but their losses in the trenches were extremely heavy), there were plenty of aristocrats who had little more than the crumbling family pile and the draught. Ironically, some of them were in far worse straights than some of the working classes, many of whom still aspired to be 'just like their betters'. Class is to the UK as race has been to parts of the US.

That’s interesting.
This might be a contradiction, but my father & other grownups thought
that very close cropped hair was a sign of poverty.
Although my father never wore his hair long & went to the barber regularly.
I recall he would use a word to describe someone that he found unpleasant as having “cropped hair”.
The connotation being that he was poor with lice on his hair & there fore had to be “trimmed”.
I can’t think of the word he used, but other grownups also used that word.

To him, long hair was a sign of young rebels or hippies.

My own parents, born in 47 and 48 to fairly working class backgrounds, both found it odd when I started wanting to wear military surplus in the mid eighties. To them, it was a last resort for those who couldn't afford anything else; to see it as a fashion statement boggled their minds.

I think you had to live through the late '60s and '70s to appreciate how much angst was wasted on arguing over hair length for men.

Or the late eighties and nineties in Northern Ireland.

It was about 15 or so years ago when The History Channel ran its first WWII in color shows - they had acquired / found / whatever - a large amount of color film from WWII - both war and home-front - and showed them in a series of "specials."

I remember those being shown in the UK for the first time. Supposedly there was a lot more colour footage shot during thewar than anyone realised for some time thereafter, but the footage was suppressed by the government in the UK as they didn't want the war looking too "real" les that undermine morale and support for the war effort. I can well believe it.

To be fair, we were told that the huge apartment where most of the action took place in Friends was a rent-controlled place that belonged to Monica and Ross's aunt or grandmother.

Exactly. They weren't unrealistic - just dishonest. The thing I used to marvel at in that show was why so many people had affection for the characters; they were mostly repulsive people.

 

[GHT]

My own parents, born in 47 and 48 to fairly working class backgrounds, both found it odd when I started wanting to wear military surplus in the mid eighties. To them, it was a last resort for those who couldn't afford anything else; to see it as a fashion statement boggled their minds.

And yet one of the many fads of the sixties was to wear Victorian Military, I remember a number of court cases arising because the youth of the day didn't realise that some antiquated uniforms were maintained for formal occasions, for example, The Chelsea Pensioners. Back then you were only allowed to wear defunct military uniforms. Only the military were permitted to wear current uniforms, and that meant all types, at least in public.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

My mother's family were big shots in their little South Texas town. They were the lawyers and politicians. Unfortunately for her and my grandmother, her father was the black sheep of that family, the shiftless drinker and gambler who could never keep a job. She, her sister and their mother became poor relations when my Texas grandfather abandoned them when Mom was about three.
My father's family were dustbowl Okies. They fled when living conditions got intolerable. Grandpa was an oil rig foreman and word came that some oil fields were coming in in south Texas, so unlike the Joads they headed south. This was the height of the Depression and when they arrived in Karnes County Grandpa had a look around and decided that this was a good place to wait out the hard times. There wasn't much, but the necessities were cheap, it was a time of good rainfall so produce was plentiful and Grandpa was a skilled man. If the oil companies weren't hiring, he was a good machinist and could usually find work in a machine shop.The people were good people and didn't ostracize Okies.
They settled in and their two boys became the first of the family to go to college. My father's older brother, Denzel, was the brilliant scholar and Dad was the star athlete and they both got scholarships. Then the war came along and both brothers became officers in the Army Air Corps. Afterwards, it was the usual postwar story. They married, moved to the 'burbs and raised little Boomers, assisted by GI housing loans.
It was a time much romanticized now but it was really just people coping with the crappy hand they'd been dealt. In my case, it turned out pretty well. Only quite late in life did I understand how lucky I was.

 

[ChiTownScion]

To be honest, I wouldn't give up the experiences I've had for anything. I've been coast-to-coast on a bus, twice, and seen things you'll never see on the tourist tracks, I've seen what really goes on in factories, I've been a reporter and have seen senators and governors and presidential candidates pick their noses and scratch their crotches when they didn't think anyone was looking, I've done all kinds of other interesting crap, and I've been a part of my community in a way that I find very satisfying. What more is there?

At the end of the day I suppose the real question to be posed is: Is the world a better place because of me?

It doesn't demand that you bring home a Nobel or a Pulitzer. And it usually isn't incarnated that dramatically. Typically it bears out in the lives of those around us. A few - I would like to think- can say that of me. I know for certain that a number, especially among those theatre kids, can say that of you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's kind of what I tell them, actually. Don't get caught up in a lot of high-blown talk about making "the world" a better place. Make your *neighborhood* a better place. If enough people do that the world will take care of itself.

 

[Edward]

And yet one of the many fads of the sixties was to wear Victorian Military, I remember a number of court cases arising because the youth of the day didn't realise that some antiquated uniforms were maintained for formal occasions, for example, The Chelsea Pensioners. Back then you were only allowed to wear defunct military uniforms. Only the military were permitted to wear current uniforms, and that meant all types, at least in public.

I don't think that one much made it to Northern Ireland. but yeah... Jimi Hendrix's famous pelise was a genuine Crimean War piece, which boggles my mind now, but then in the Sixties the Crimean War was to them as the twenties to us now. But then 1965 to us is as 1909 was to them. Put in those terms, I can start to see in a big way why the Sixties seems such a revolution at the time!

 

[Fading Fast]

That's kind of what I tell them, actually. Don't get caught up in a lot of high-blown talk about making "the world" a better place. Make your *neighborhood* a better place. If enough people do that the world will take care of itself.

I agree, but I'd even take it down a notch. First, don't be a bad person - don't cheat, steal, lie, don't look to cut a corner, gain an unfair advantage, don't insult, look to pick on someone, don't vandalize (even at a small level), just be honest, fair, upfront. If we took the negative out of the world, we'd all have a lot more time for the positive. I've known too many people who do charity work, but are cutthroat in their life - would cheat you on a deal, gain an unfair advantage, stab a co-worker in the back, but then do a 10k run for this or that cause.

I'd even go so far as argue that we might (and I emphasize "might" as my impressions are anecdotal) have just raised a very charitable generation - all the kids and young men and women I know today have either served at soup kitchens, built homes for the needy, worked in elderly care facilities, etc. - but not all of these same are nice, honest, people of good will, but they firmly believe in charity work.

The first step to being a good person is not being a bad person. Our local communities and our "world" will be better if the first thing we did was raise people who didn't do bad - pro-actively doing the good work for others is step two.

 

[Harp]

I ended up working my way through college and law school: their contributions were minimal. I ended up where I wanted as result of a lot of hard work ...

I never appreciated schooling as a kid, though the Army turned me around fast but Vietnam's GI Bill was a sorry joke; fortunately I pulled through.
Looking back, the long haul-like life-was infinitely more rewarding than if it had all been handed to me.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I never appreciated schooling as a kid, though the Army turned me around fast but Vietnam's GI Bill was a sorry joke; fortunately I pulled through.
Looking back, the long haul-like life-was infinitely more rewarding than if it had all been handed to me.

The young people I feel the most empathy now for are the ones who simply can't work their way up as you or I did. Seems as if the world has gotten more brutal and cut throat, at least as far as avaricious employers are concerned. A lot of them will keep the weekly hours of their workers below the minimum required to pay health care benefits, retirement plans have become a joke, etc.

People can crab about the sixties and seventies all they want, but there was still at least a sense that we were all in this mess together. I happen to think that kids today could make it on their own if the system were set up to protect the innocent and punish the wrongdoers in the workplace, but that seems to be an ever vanishing ideal. People can damn "big government" to their heart's content- but I know of no way to curb the often brutal effects of corporate greed without it. I don't want to get overtly political here, but when a vile and immoral harpy such as Ayn Rand is deified by so many, we're courting disaster as a society. We've forgotten nearly all of what the New Deal era taught us.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

..But it's obvious that you want to get political, because lately it seems easy to get away with concerning similar positions, unless someone dares to attempt an opposing view. Then it seems quickly attacked and hushed.

 

[Harp]

.... but when a vile and immoral harpy such as Ayn Rand is deified by so many, we're courting disaster as a society. We've forgotten nearly all of what the New Deal era taught us.

Thought only Rousseau fit that bill.
The college kids embrace her but Ayn Rand plowed no furrows in Philosophy's fertile field, and Nietzsche's thrown gauntlet remains untouched.
The New Deal economics of Keynes conflicts with The Great Society ruin echo of Emerson: "For everything given, something is taken."

 

[LizzieMaine]

The young people I feel the most empathy now for are the ones who simply can't work their way up as you or I did. Seems as if the world has gotten more brutal and cut throat, at least as far as avaricious employers are concerned. A lot of them will keep the weekly hours of their workers below the minimum required to pay health care benefits, retirement plans have become a joke, etc.

I had an interesting conversation this weekend with one of the kids. She followed the Accepted Script, graduated at the top of her class from high school, went to college, got her degree, and is working full time as a children's librarian, for $12 an hour. She has to work at the theatre part time to make ends meet. She is 28 years old.

$12/hour is more than a lot of fulltime workers make around here, so that part of it doesn't bother her so much. Except that the library a couple years back hired an ex-convict right out of prison with no background in libraries at all and no degree of any kind as a tech director -- at $15 an hour. "Why'd I bother to go to college?" she asks. "I should have embezzeled $25,000 from my parents like that guy did, except they've never had $25,000 in their lives."

This month's Consumer Reports has a very compelling article about the current-day college finance racket. Well worth reading if you're a millennial or have millennials that you care about.

 

[kaiser]

I had an interesting conversation this weekend with one of the kids. She followed the Accepted Script, graduated at the top of her class from high school, went to college, got her degree, and is working full time as a children's librarian, for $12 an hour. She has to work at the theatre part time to make ends meet. She is 28 years old.

$12/hour is more than a lot of fulltime workers make around here, so that part of it doesn't bother her so much. Except that the library a couple years back hired an ex-convict right out of prison with no background in libraries at all and no degree of any kind as a tech director -- at $15 an hour. "Why'd I bother to go to college?" she asks. "I should have embezzeled $25,000 from my parents like that guy did, except they've never had $25,000 in their lives."

This month's Consumer Reports has a very compelling article about the current-day college finance racket. Well worth reading if you're a millennial or have millennials that you care about.

Both of my brothers daughters have now finished college with a level of debt that was unthinkable in my day ( graduated in 1981 ). Their prospects of ever getting in the "black" with the type of work they are both doing, in both cases, social type work for their local goverments, is dim at best. My advice to both of them was to not go to college, but to at least initially learn a skilled trade of some type. It is a great deal cheaper, and the wages are in many cases higher than what graduates earn today. In my opinion they are now endentured servants.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

My wife and I are putting a granddaughter through college. It's an arts school in Portland, OR and she wants to get her degree in computer animation. That's what I call a specialty with a real future. Shell probably get a well-paying job right out of college. If I hadn't been able to break in as a novelist, my degree in English would have put me on the fast track to homelessness.