I have never been what some people have called a "clothes horse." I like to be neat in appearance and I hope that my togs are not too far out of style. Styles seem to change from three button to two button suits and every once in a while they try to throw that "Nehru Jacket" back in the mix. I try to take the middle of the road approach and keep at least one "marry and bury" suit in the closet and a blazer or sport coat that won’t embarrass the Mrs. when we attend a party or function. I don’t get invited out to those things much any more so I really don’t know how far out of style I really am. I can tell you that I do not own any leisure suits or white belts and I think the last of the seventies silk shirts went to the rag bin long ago. I used to be a J C Penny or Sears guy before Men’s Warehouse came along. Those Armani's just seem to go out of style before you get the wear out of them.

The church we go to is so casual the preacher wears polo shirts and Docker pants. Most of the congregation dresses the same way and you can tell the visitors immediately. They are the ones dressed in shirt and tie and the Mrs. has on a dress. Styles have come and gone over the years and along with the changes in society there seems to be a corresponding change in street wear.

Up until the late fifties children going to school wore the same style clothes as they did to church. Some in junior and senior years in high school even wore dress shirt and tie. It was nothing in those days to have a teacher take you aside and let you know that your hair was a bit long or that a girls skirt revealed a bit more leg than necessary. For some of you younger readers, especially girls, it was normal for skirts to be four inches below the knee and the only belly button you saw was a hula dancer.

The hair style for boys were crew cuts or flat tops and if you were a rebel you wore a cut called d-a, which meant the hair was combed back on the side of the head with a soft part going down the back of the head. Most of the guys who wore d-a haircuts were called greasers because they had to put so much goo in their hair to keep it in place.

As I mentioned before I was not one of those people who showed much interest in styles and fads. That is until the summer of my fifteenth year.

I recall drifting down to the corner one Sunday afternoon after church and there discovered one of the guys wearing one of the most beautiful pair shoes I had ever seen. I marveled at their whiteness and how they made the rest of his attire stand out. I had seen my first pair of white buck shoes.

From that day I was totally consumed with owning my own pair white bucks. I worked, saved and stashed every spare cent I could get my hands on. I worked feverishly through the winter to save enough to get them. I would cash in pop bottles and do errands for people, all the time pushing for that goal I had set for myself.

Christmas came and much of what I had saved was spent buying small presents for the family, but after the first of the year I went back to the aims of the new year. Come spring I would proudly walk down the sidewalk after church sporting my brand new white bucks. Winter seemed very long and cold and few errands to do to pick up the cash I would need for those white bucks. Soon winter released its grip on us and the new buds of spring burst out. The dogwoods bloomed and Easter approached. I finally had the funds and made my way to the store and bought those shoes.

Come Easter morning I put on my Sunday best and donned my white buck shoes. Even though they were new, just the knowledge of having those shoes on my feet made my steps as light as feathers, no break in needed. I would have worn those shoes if I had to double my toes over backward to get them on. After church I went home for lunch and then it was off to the corner to show off my new white buck shoes.

When I got there, the same group of guys were there that always hung out at the corner and when they saw me and I must have been beaming like a new millionaire. But wait a minute. There was something dreadfully wrong here on this beautiful sunshiny Sunday. No one was wearing white buck shoes. Well that is except me. I looked at the shoes of the other guys standing around. There they were with new shoes but they were a beautiful shade of red not white.