What to Watch When the Television is on the Fritz: 1970s Style

Got to thinking about clothes this morning. Several bloggers have mentioned clothes in one fashion or another (how's that for utilizing words).

For myself, I'm not fashionable at all. While I like nice clothes, finding them is hard, because what I think looks nice seems to be completely wrong as far as current fashion goes. So I don't even try.

All summer long I have been rotating through three pair of solid color golf shorts. I assume they're golf shorts. Lots of pockets. One is sky blue, one is black, and one is a beige. During cold weather I rotate between different colored sweat pants. Those are all tattered now and I am going to have to replace them. Apart from that I wear t-shirts, both as an undershirt and an overshirt. I attempt to match colors when I go out in public. My coolest look is when I wear black. But it's hard to look cool when one is over fifty, overweight, and over-the-hill.

Shorts have always been my apparel of choice for warm weather. When I was very young, I would cut the lower legs off my jeans when my knees broke through the denim and wear cutoffs. Those were great because I never had to change clothes to go swimming. (Only skinny dipped a couple of times. Didn't much care for that. Maybe if there had been girls present it would have been different. We didn't have that kind of courage.)

Later, after I had discovered the joy of tennis, I constantly wore a pair of tennis shorts under my regular pants. Bought an entire wardrobe of white tennis shorts so I would always have a clean pair to wear. I kept my tennis raquet in the car so should any opportunity arise I could play. Freaked out more than a few people when I would walk out onto the court and drop my pants. I guess I have a bit of the exhibitionist in me. I just don't go so far to actually reveal anything. Well, not on purpose. I just reminded myself of a time when I was especially stupid.

I was in my early twenties and living alone on the third floor of a delapitaed complex. My only possessions were my round bumper pool table, a box spring and mattress, and a clock radio. Since I worked at a pizza place I kept no food, so I was unaware of the infestation of insects which plagued the place. Finding nothing to eat in my apartment/flat the bugs stayed away. I only learned about it when I saw someone's note by the mail boxes demanding that something be done about the silverfish.

Anyway, I would come home after work, some time after midnight, and either work on Swords of Fire or my current sports league. On my way home I would stop at a local convenience store and buy two cans of Beefaroni and a two liter of Tahitian Treat. I would get home and heat up my Beefaroni and eat and drink. I had no dishes apart from the pan I used to heat my food and the spoon I used to eat with. Very soon after taking this apartment it dawned on me that if I was going to have dishes I would have to wash them. So I threw everything except the pan and the spoon away. My method of washing these utensils was to run them under hot water until the orange was gone.

Anyway, there was no air conditioning in this place, and back in those days we were having normal summers, complete with heat and humidity. Just breathing would make me sweat. But then I've always been a sweater. Even when I was ungodly thin. So, to avoid having my regular clothes soaked with sweat (and hence smell, because I only did laundry once a week back then) I would take off all of my clothes. You see, I didn't have that many. But what did I care? I was on third floor. Who could see me? Right?

To be sure, I had even gone downstairs and walked outside to look up. I was able to determine just how close I could come to the windows without being seen. I was quite proud of myself. All I had to do was stay deep in the apartment and I would be fine. That's what I thought. What a moron!

It was a few weeks later that I learned the truth. I was especially hungry and decided to walk back to the store and get more Beefaroni and Tahitian Treat. (My work, the store and the apartment/flat were all within a quarter mile of each other.) Since I was coming right back I left the lights on. It was while I was returning that I saw the truth: From a distance, I could see absolutely everything in the apartment that was higher than two feet off the floor. Privacy? I was the neighborhood show!

Fortunately, back then I was in my early twenties and still thin. Had I looked like I do today the police would have been called imediately. As it was I now had a better understanding of the looks I was getting from all the women. And the one guy. It might have also explained why Marilyn (a waitress at the pizza place) chose to move into the building across the parking lot from mine. I never dared ask.