My Very Own Traveling Pants

Did you ever see the movie "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". It's a sweet movie about young girls becoming young woman and the four of them share a pair of jeans the first summer they are separated after high school graduation. Each of them keeps the pants for a bit and then mails them to the next friend. The pants brought the girls luck and I guess more important, the pants were something the girls shared, more than pants, a part of their lives.

When I was about 12 my brother Michael was dating a girl named Gina. Gina in fact influenced my choice of which high school I would attend and I'm so thankful for that, it was a wonderful part of my life.

Gina had the best clothes. It was still during the hippie era, I guess the end of it, but I do remember thinking she was so cool. I also didn't understand why she was dating my brother Michael as I pretty much couldn't stand him at that age. I wrote about Michael in my "Spelunker" blog just recently and one of my friends commented that she remembered how cute my brothers were. Growing up I was always told how cute my three older brothers were. I didn't get it? A normal sibling observation, at least I think so.

Well Gina gave me a pair of Maverick Jeans. I know my friend Linda has a picture of me in those jeans some time during my high school days, not sure if they were shorts at that time yet. But I wore those pants since I was 12, still have them today and can still fit in them. They do need to be attended to again, I haven't worked on them for years. The last time I wore them was about 8 years ago and I think I'm going to make them into a bag now, maybe my cousin Chrissy can help me? She's much better at sewing than I am, except of course when it comes to sewing people to mattresses!



The patches were all over the pants before they were shorts, again part of the style at that time. I see jeans for sale now with patches on them, but it's not the same as the ones I remember from the hippie era. There were patches on the pants randomly because they covered holes, now they are strategically placed, designed, perfect, neat, that was not the hippie look.

I was 12 when I started wearing these jeans and my mom and my dad washed them and folded them and put them away in my dresser, living in our house in Brooklyn. I was still "playing" at that age. Falling, tripping, ripping my pants. I was just a kid. But I love that my parents washed these pants so many times, saw me in them. Teased me about my patches and the fact that I still had my traveling pants. They remind me how my father used to tease me when he did the laundry. He said he could always tell my pants because I stapled or taped the hems up. They didn't make clothes for short people in those days. I was about 30 or so when I finally could buy a pair of pants and not have to take them up. But my traveling pants were always tended to, they have been on many vacations, spent years "down the Jersey Shore" with me.

I started to add patches not long after I got my Mavericks, again to cover holes. It wasn't too long before the bottom part of the pants just couldn't be patched up anymore and I cut them into shorts. All the patches are little pieces of my history. One of the patches is from an old pair of corduroy pants I loved, another a beach towel and bandana from dates with special men in my past. Some are from shirts I loved that were falling apart and some embroidery, which was basically used to keep the pants from falling apart, especially the seams. My friend Danny is always telling everyone to give me money to buy me new pants when he sees me in my traveling pants. I've been told I could probably sell them too. They are Maverick Jeans from about 1970 or so, and I would guess they were bell bottoms as well.

My friend Teresa saw a picture of me from when I was about 14 or 15 and she cracked up, saying I was a hippie. Teresa is about 13 or so years younger than me, we grew up in different times. I told her I was the farthest from being described as a hippie of anyone. It was just the style. Every girl wore her hair long and straight, parted in the middle. If you had curly hair or wavy hair you put big tin cans in your hair to straighten it or actually used an iron and ironed it. You wore jeans with patches, tie dye shirts. Bell bottoms. Colorful bell sleeved shirts. Vests. Fringed vests and jackets. The times.

But the pants have been in my closet for years, and even though I haven't worn them in a few years I could never bring myself to throw them away or sell them.

By making my traveling pants into a bag I can pass it down to one of my nieces and one of them can start adding their own patches and then pass it down to the next generation of girls in the future generations of my family. That would be a nice feeling while working on my traveling pants again, knowing a piece of me will travel with my great great niece, become my family's Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Maybe the world will live in peace at the time my great, great, great niece has the pants, and will be a reminder of all the good hippies who just wanted the world to be a better place, who wanted peace.

PS, I loved this Coca Cola commercial which probably came out during the early days of my traveling pants. If you're my age, I think you will remember that you liked it too.

PEACE MAN!