I Want Your Slacks

If you hear or feel a dreadful trembling of the earth anytime soon, please don't worry.

It's just my mother turning over in her grave at a rural cemetery in Rochester, Ohio. Yes, I know that's a long ways away, but there's a reason for this sepulchral rumbling that transcends time and space.

You see, she's just received word, or perhaps it was a vision (one of those startling flashes beamed up to remind the angels on coffee break that there's work to be done) of the terrible depths to which youth fashion has now plummeted. Assuming their quirky jargon, Mom might say, "Hello. . . ? Excuse me. . . ? What part of 'get dressed' do you not understand?" Alas, from the Super Bowl advertising campaigns to the malls and hallways of our public schools, the Britney Spears school of nouveau couture has exploded everywhere, like a well-shaken can of warm Pepsi.

Quite possibly, the celestial version of my mother was readily reminded of youth fashion extremes when our sixteen-year-old son arrived at her funeral a few years ago. His blue spiky hair certainly took the focus away from the low-hanging skater baggies belted closer to his knees than his navel. I thanked God at the time not only for baseball caps worn backwards but for super-sized shirts that covered that unpleasant rear fissure of flesh we'd never grown used to during the plumber's visits. Then, a few years later, since he'd already had his ears pierced, it's possible that her heavenly spirit only clucked disapproval at the silver claw that took up residence between his chin and his lower lip.

As I look back, I think it might have actually been the hippies at Oberlin College during the late sixties and early seventies who prepared her for anything on the far side of weird when it came to fashion. As a night nurse at the hospital, she'd seen it all: Afros that resembled fuzzy, oversized football helmets, paisley granny dresses with ragged hemlines that tickled filthy bare feet, and underwear that stood on its own when thrown into a corner.

However, this fashion trend thrust upon us by Miss Britney and various other nubile female recording artists (at least with J-Lo we got some pretty good jokes) is more than most thinking mothers (my own included) can take. For sure, J-Lo's infamous green, almost-a-dress would have plunged Mom (may God rest her soul) into a ranting most unbecoming of her Methodist parsonage upbringing.

You see, my mother's youth began with the Jazz Age, came of age with the Great Depression, and matured with World War II. Growing up, Mother chose -- quite properly and fashionably -- skirts and dresses whose hemlines rose and fell with the world economy. Even as a farmer's wife and mother of two during the war years, there were no blue denim overalls or Rosie-the-Riveter coveralls in her closet. And yet, in 1953, -- her fortieth year -- my mother decided to buy her first pair of slacks.

Since mid-life crises had not yet been invented and the "real" women's lib was another two decades away, my mother's decision can only be explained as an attempt to dress comfortably. Thus, the notorious navy blue slacks were truly her first experience in wearing women's trousers (although my dad claimed she'd been wearing the pants in our family for some time).

Mom, unlike most women of the fifties, was a working mom. With so little time to shop in stores, she took refuge in mail order catalogs. From the gargantuan Sears and Roebuck to the more economical Alden's, Mom had department stores at her fingertips. My sister and I, hovering at her elbow on a wintry night, would watch her thumb past pages of lovely, pastel Easter dresses -- we didn't know she'd already written them on the order blank --in search of something nice for herself. Before she finished her shopping, she had bravely added to the order form: one pair of women's slacks, navy blue, pleated front, no cuffs.

When they arrived two weeks later in all their size twenty splendor, Mom was excited. She lifted them from their wrappings of white tissue and brown paper with the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning. She slipped into the bedroom to try them on, returning moments later in search of Dad's approval.

"Well, they'll do just fine," my dad offered in his usual, noncommittal, but slightly encouraging way. He knew her well enough to know she'd wear them shyly at first, to the homes of friends and maybe later to summer picnics. He didn't have to worry about this being the beginning of some break-away trend that would lead to sleazy halter tops, short shorts, and Saturday nights at the local beer joint. After all, we had a younger, less fleshy aunt who had pulled that one off with greater success.

Naturally, Mom and her new pants required a moment of minor celebration. So, out came the small red box , a primitive pinhole camera, perennial recorder of so many momentous turning points in our family. Click! Years later, this black and white image of Mom at forty standing next to the Chinese elm in the side yard, smiling into the late afternoon sun, remains strong and sturdy in mind and photo album.

Eventually, her foray into the casual corner of women's fashions yielded to the polyester pant suits she traveled in during the seventies and even a few pa ir of Bermuda shorts she'd wear only around the house on the warmest of summer days. With the exception of shoes, personal comfort never took precedence over good taste. In her lifetime, women had fashion rules guiding their decisions, tempered always by a sense of decorum. The "feminine mystique" was just that -- a mystique reserved for the boudoir or a stealthily stashed men's magazine, not for the traffic-stopping billboard or its electronic counterpart, MTV.

Like a chambered nautilus, I will always carry with me the image of my mother and her first pair of slacks as well as the modest dress code to which she always adhered. Thus, it is easy for me to imagine her being appalled by the clothing young girls today are wearing -- or in many cases, not wearing.

As a high school teacher, even I am becoming increasingly amazed with what some young women have determined their constitutional right to bare arms, thighs, midriff, and navel in the name of fashion or personal expression. Perhaps, to paraphrase Danny Glover's remark to Mel Gibson, "I'm getting too old for this stuff." In the mean time, I rely on my own creative, trouble-shooting tricks: I lower my classroom temperature to the middle-aged woman's comfort level of a heavenly 60 degrees. And I keep a stash of long-sleeved tee-shirts in the closet for the naked few who complain. They don't seem to suspect a method to my madness.

I do know one thing for sure: when the girls start showing up in class in thong bikinis, I'm definitely retiring. I simply will not be able to teach over the noise of the earth-trembling rumble.