Generation Gap

When I was a kid -- a.very.long.time.ago. there was a brand of pants that I would never have been caught dead wearing. That brand was Dickies. Whenever I saw this logo I immediately thought of my grandpa who was a farmer and wore Dickies overalls every day of his life, unless he was "going to town", when he would put on his "good pants", Dickies jeans! I also thought of those men who worked at manual labor type jobs. Dickies brand represented the "working class"....and I tried really hard to seperate myself from the "working class" as a teenager. I was kind of snobby, back then!! lol

I haven't thought about Dickies brand clothes in FOREVER, until recently I went shopping and saw none other than DICKIES Brand pants. and they weren't in Wally-world, where the farmers and other hard working manual laborer kinds of men shop! They were in KOHL'S, then I went to DILLARDS and another store I can't think of the name of, right now and they were there, too!! I couldn't believe my eyes!

Then I turned around and saw a nicely dressed, upper-middle class teenager looking to purchase these pants!! I was shocked....what is wrong with this kid, I thought to myself. Doesn't he know these pants are for the farmers and manual laborers of the country to buy so they can have pants that won't wear out and stain, when he busts his hump for the rest of the country to have some wheat, corn, or other such produce to eat???

Fast forward a couple of weeks to this week. That Kid got a new job where he has to wear plain, non-cargo pocketed shorts in the color khaki. So he went shopping, without mommy :(((( When did he grow up on me??? Anywhooo, he came home from Kohl's where he purchased none other than a pair of DICKIES khaki colored shorts!! I can't believe my own flesh and blood would purchase such a thing!! What came over him?? Then I asked him, "why did you buy Dickies brand shorts?" His response was, "why, what is wrong with Dickies brand shorts?? They are 'cool' and they were "cheap". My response was "Of course, they're cheap, they were made for people who can't afford to buy "regular" clothes!!" His response was "Oh!". Such a teenage answer, don't you think??

Now, don't get me wrong I have nothing against working class folks and I have nothing against "cheap" clothes. And truth be told I have nothing against "Dickies" brand clothes. It just shocked me to see something I always steered away from because it was for "the poor" and I thought I would tell you about these differences in my generation and that of my almost 18 year old son. Dickies brand clothes have gone from "taboo" to "cool" in a generation!

The moral of the story is "what a difference a generation makes" in what is cool and what isn't. I hope I haven't offended anyone!! I really do love and appreciate the working class people of America.