Mister Boomer envisioned a lost episode of Leave It To Beaver this past week. It centered around the Beaver tearing a hole in his jeans:
Leave It To Beaver: The Lost Episode
The Beaver walks up to his home. June Cleaver spots him coming and, wiping her hands on her apron, immediately meets him on the porch.
June: Theodore, what happened? You have a tear in your pants!
The Beaver: Oh, it’s nothing. I was playing on the school monkey bars and got caught on one of the bolts. I hardly bled at all.
June: Look at that tear! Come on, I’ll sew it up before supper.
Wally and Eddie Haskell walk up and listen to the conversation, while at the same time Ward Cleaver pulls into the driveway, home from a long day at work. All three converge on the porch with the Beaver and June.
The Beaver: I was thinking, mom, maybe you could just leave it the way it is.
June: What! Whatever do you mean, Theodore?
The Beaver: Well, Wally was saying how some of the cool kids at school have holes in their jeans. Right, Wally?
Wally: Hey, leave me out of it, Beav.
Eddie Haskell: Yeah, Wally doesn’t know anything about what is cool! Hey, Beaver, when we were your age, our dungarees were made of strong stuff. We couldn’t punch a hole in them if we wanted to! What are yours made of, two-ply?
June (bewildered, but ignoring Eddie): So you think you want to be like the cool kids and have a hole in your jeans?
The Beaver: Well, with a face like this, I can only be so cool, so yeah, why not?
June: WHY NOT??!!?? Just because other misguided children want to walk around with holes in their jeans doesn’t mean you have to do it, too! If they wanted to jump off a bridge, would you want to do that, too?
Ward comes over and wraps an arm around her shoulder and gently nudges the now trembling Mrs. Cleaver to the front door.
Ward to Eddie: Will you be staying for supper, Eddie?
Eddie Haskell: No thanks, Mr. Cleaver. I got to be going. See you tomorrow, Wally!
Eddie leaves as the Cleaver family enters the house. Ward sits June in a chair in his den, her eyes glazed over and holding back sobs.
Ward addresses the Beaver: You know, being cool isn’t all its made out to be. I was young once, too, you know. All my friends had zoot suits, but you know what I did? I refrained from buying one. It wasn’t really for me, now was it, Theodore?
Ward lights his pipe that he pulled from his jacket pocket.
Ward: Did you stop to consider what other people would think of your mother, letting you walk around with a hole in your jeans? This is the 1960s, Theodore. People fought for our freedom to create the kind of life where people wouldn’t have to walk around with holes in their jeans. Would you want people to think your mother wasn’t doing her duty? Do you understand, now, Theodore?
The Beaver:: Yes, sir. I guess so.
June makes a remarkable recovery and pops up out of the chair.
June: Wally, take Theodore upstairs and pour hydrogen peroxide and some mercurochrome on his bloody knee. Theodore, change those pants and you boys wash up for supper. I’ll mend them after I do the dishes.
June exits for the kitchen as Ward sits in his chair to read the newspaper.
Wally: Come on, Beav. What were you thinking?
The boys walk up the stairs. Roll credits.
The situation that prompted this hallucinogenic flashback was a tear Mister B has in the knee of his jeans. Mister B had written before about the trend of torn jeans (see: Boomers and Torn Jeans: The Evolution from Time-to-Replace to High Fashion). But this was different; it happened to him! One day, out of the blue, as he bent, the fabric flexed over his knee and split horizontally in two places.
At first, Mister Boomer thought maybe he’d just go with the flow. No one would give him a second look, with the proliferation of torn denim parading around the streets these days. After only one wearing, though, the tears grew wider, exposing his entire knee to the elements. This was not the season for exposed knees, so Mister Boomer did the only thing he thought he could do: he grabbed needle and thread and attempted to mend the tears.
Despite his rudimentary sewing skills (Mister B never took Home Ec), he was able to stitch the fabric in a manner that reminded him of scars on Frankenstein’s monster. “Maybe I’ll start a new trend,” he thought, admiring his amateur repair.
When the time came to rotate from one pair of jeans to another, Mister B put on his Frankenstein jeans. Within an hour, the fabric tore, not along the hastily sewn stitches, but directly above and below the thread line; the repair thread was stronger than the fabric.
Mister B is befuddled, now. If men his age are out in public with torn jeans, people will feel sorry for the old man on a fixed income who can’t afford a new pair of jeans. So much for being cool. What is maddening, though, is the jeans were a major brand name. The fabric obviously is not of the strength and durability we remember in our boomer days. Just what are they made out of, two-ply?
What have you done about torn jeans at your age, boomers? Or are you sitting at the cool kids’ table, sporting your designer tears?
A few years ago I went shopping to buy a new pair of jeans as one of my pairs was (I thought) worn out. I went to several stores and all the ‘new’ jeans I saw were in worse condition that the ones I wanted to replace!