Getting back clothes from your teens once they outgrow them
First Person:
By Al Carlos Hernandez
Now that it’s back to school time, I realize that I am a member of a generation victimized by the familial tradition of wearing clothes your older siblings have outgrown or have grown tired. These clothes were called “hand me downs.” Like many of you, I grew up “working class poor” in a family of five siblings. I suffered from this tradition from the very beginning of my lackluster academic career.
My older brother, who is one year and fifty four days older than me (not that I was stigmatized by that), was the captain of the football team while president of the student body. I was in pre-remedial woodshop. He purchased a new sweater and, to punish me, gave me one of his famous black sweaters with brown panels. Let’s make this crystal clear and let the record show that as the standing Minister of Information emeritus for the Brown Berets, I have never been a sweater person. One unusually cold day I made the mistake of wearing his hand me down sweater and the smart kids asked me really hard questions I couldn’t answer. This reinforced my negative self image so I cut the sleeves off. Okay, so I was stigmatized by that whole age thing after all. I did try to wear my brothers shoes after he grew out of them, but he always had that 45 degree slant to them making me bow legged. It usually felt like I was walking on a taco and for some strange reason always wanted to go to the library or a debate team meeting.As a grown man I have overcome all the stigmas from high school and hold no malice toward my older brother who, as it turns out, is a presiding Superior County Judge of one of the largest jurisdictions in the country. And yes, I am still taller than he is.
Lately I have been experiencing a variation of the Hand Me Down, which I call the Hand Me Backs. Let me explain. A hand me back is something you buy for one of your kids to wear to high school. It can be a sweatshirt, football/basketball jersey and or high ticket athletic shoes. Don’t even try the pants because I will tell you right now that they will be way too baggy, and an older guy in baggy pants is usually a fat drunk or a former high school quarterback. Suddenly, it seems overnight, the ungrateful child somehow outgrows the one-hundred dollar item. Inexplicably the item of clothing or the sports team it represents slips out of vogue. Nobody wears Chicago Bulls stuff anymore except divorced dads. Some adolescents, in bowing to peer pressure, have chosen never to wear the item again. I call this “shirt-a-non-grata.” This is when you repossess and/or ask for the item back so that you can wear it. Ergo, “Hand it Back to me, because I bought it for you in the first place and it’s still new and way too nice to send it to the segunda (the second hand store). So I will wear it because it’s warm and it fits.”
As a writer, and an educator. I work mostly at home in a home office so I don’t spend much money at all on work attire. All I need are jeans, t-shirts, and tennis shoes. When I teach I wear nice jeans, a collared shirt and vintage cowboy boots. (One “B” student made it a practice before each class to ask, “Dr. Hernandez, which endangered species are you wearing on your feet this evening?”)
Back in the day, hand me downs were simple unless you were a dude with older sisters or a young girl with all older brothers. This could result in two things: gender identification issues or all new stuff all the time.
Some people have a problem wearing someone else’s clothing, these people are called Republicans. What is weird is wearing someone else’s high miler shoes. I have mentioned before that a gay friend of mine’s credo is: unless the shoes hurt, they cannot be considered cute. One of my sons recently gave me an expensive pair of tennis shoes which matched a particular outfit. Although the shoes were, in theory, the right size, they were puffy, somehow high, round and tamale-like. This kid has since been forced on a low carb diet.
An interesting thing has happened since I instated the right of first refusal when we buy an article of clothing for the kids. My wife noticed that when I am draped in hand me back attire, I am dressed exactly like a 19 year old urban kid would be dressed exactly one year ago. This makes me look like an old dude trying to be young when, in fact, I’m a cheap dad trying to be resourceful.
I am proud to say that all of my sons are taller than my 5293 stature and well over my 175 pound girth. This is because they eat up all of our food like locusts and they never have to come out of pocket at Costco. They wait at the house and schlep all groceries up the stairs to their rooms. I was with my boys a few weeks ago in one of those really hip athletic wear shops. One of the shop keepers asked me, “Excuse me sir. Where did you get that Jersey? It’s sick!” I bought it in New York all on my own, and my boys were proud. Then my wife reminded me that I’m too old to wear football jerseys in public. So she promised it to one of the boys.
Hernandez is editor of LatinoLA.com