I was on time for this photo but my baby blue leisure suit was 5 years too late.

Graduation Picture Day

It was 8th grade graduation picture day.  It was a big day and I supposed to bring a suit to Saint Rose so that at 1PM when the photographer arrived we could take our class picture together.  It was certainly a big day and everyone wanted to look their best.

Changing Time

At 12:45 we all got out of class early.  Hurray!  So we could go to the bathroom to change into our suits.  My big brother Bill let me borrow his suit that he wore about 5 years or so earlier for his big day.

It was a baby blue leisure suit made of Levi fabric.  It was casual but dressy and I dressed in it like Bill did by putting the collar outside of the lapel.  It was money.

As I began changing into my suit I looked around.  And to my horror, no one else was wearing leisure suits.  Everyone was wearing brown suits with brown ties.

I wanted to run out of that bathroom all the way home.  I needed an excuse to get out of the pictures.  Everyone else was wearing fashionable brown suits and I was wearing a dated Leisure Blue Suit from the John Travolta ERA!  The horror of it all.

I was on Time, My Suit Was Late

It was last call.  Sr Mary Daniel was yelling for the last stragglers to leave the bathroom and head over to the side of the church to take the photos.  I was the last one.

“Let’s make this quick I said.” running out of the bathroom and over to the church where most of the kids were getting in formation. As I stood there half smiling for the picture, I had my first dose of fashion reality.  Fashions change, so you have to as well.  I was on time for the photo that day but my suit was obviously 5 years too late.

10 minutes later the pictures were over and I ran back to the bathroom. I was never so happy to change into my SRL school uniform than that moment.

Poor Eddie Got Bad Fashion Advice from Me Too

Oh I almost forgot.  The night before the photos Eddie had asked me what I was wearing and I told him a leisure suit with the collar on the outside.  Poor Eddie obviously listened to my bad advice and looked like John Travolta too.  My bad advice was like a bad flu that people around me got.

Eddie never listened to my fashion advice again. Sorry Eddie.  I didn’t know.

Mom to the Rescue

I went home and as my mom so often does, she came to the rescue.  Right than and there she took me to Miller’s Outpost and bought me the brownest suit with the brownest tie she could find.    I felt like I belonged right than and  there.  No one would out-brown me with a suit ever again!  And they never did.

So Brown and Happy in My Brown Suit.

I went to that Graduation Night in my brown suit and I was so happy.  It was short lived however because once I went to the dance that night, I was once again horrified because I had no idea how to dance.

My God being a Kid was HARD!  I think I spent most of the next 8 years embarrassed about something I couldn’t do or didn’t have.  What a waste.  Well youth is wasted on the young.  I hate brown suits these days.  And I absolutely love that leisure suit.