All Due Respect

There's a funeral home not far from my house. I pass by it frequently, and being the clothing snob that I am I constantly find myself sizing up the outfits people see fit to wear to the moment of final respect these days. Recently, I saw a skinny young fellow, perhaps 18 years old, heading into the home dressed something like this:

photo knicked from the internet

The kid I saw was skinny, and tall, and lanky. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie. His suit was at least four sizes too big. The shoulders of the jacket over hung his own shoulders by several inches, and the sleeves all but covered his hands. The pants were at least six inches too long, puddling at the ankles in large folds. His shirt collar hung far enough away from his neck too fit your whole hand in the gap. Of course, my gut reaction was one of abject disdain and criticism...until I gave it a moments thought.

The internet in general and sites like mine in particular have a way of bringing together the wide diaspora of men out there who still give a damn about dressing well, for better or worse. The fortunate side effect of this is that we find an accidental community of like minded people to discuss our mutual interest with. The unfortunate side effect is that this can lead to a tendency to be overly cantankerous and curmudgeonly. Traits like this can be quaint and endearing in small doses, but they easily get out of hand. Unchecked, they are qualities attractive to no one.

I'm going to go ahead and not only cut our skinny young friend some slack, but outright applaud his efforts. He did, after all, wear a black suit and tie to a funeral, a rare enough thing and a clear sign of respect for the gravity of the occasion at hand. Most of his older couterparts who I observed that day afforded the deceased enough respect to tuck thier shirt (neck open, sleeves rolled back) into their "good" khakis. I'd venture to guess that if it weren't for their wives, many of these men's clothes wouldn't even have been pressed. And here's this kid in a black suit, you know, like he's going to a funeral or something. Bravo, I say. Let's just hope someone comes into his life to help guide him down the right path, one he may have taken a tenative step down, someone to help him tune things up a bit. Maybe his dad can step in, maybe he'll find advice on the internet. Either way, take it how you can get it these days.

The old crumbs, myself included, like to go on ad nauseam about the things we've lost in our culture, yet we can be very reluctant to look for glimmers of hope. You should see the way the old dudes scare a young guy out of the J. Press store in Harvard Square, all the while complaining about how they're not selling anything these days, how the old customers are dropping one by one. We simply can't have it both ways. Guys like our young friend ought to be encouraged, not chastised.The same goes for twenty something "preppies" who shop at J. Crew and kids who are way into Polo. They want to do it, it turns them on, but like all kids, they just don't really know what they're talking about. Until someone tells them , that is. They've already partaken of the gateway drug. It's up to the rest of us to show them clean, uncut, snow white good stuff.