I have spent a lot of time recently considering what I’m going to look like in my declining years. These are questions not easily answered and they require an awful lot of thought.
They include questions such as: Am I going to employ a hat, do suspenders look good on a guy like me, what level of comfort in public can be maintained while still not wearing sweatpants to a bar?
Important.
There is, of course, the comfort level. Were there no rules in pubic, I would spend my late years visiting pubs and restaurants and even governmental offices in lounge wear, or clothing that I had on when I got out of bed that morning. And while I do employ a ‘who cares’ attitude in most things fashion, I want that to stop short of me being asked by police for contact numbers.
There is also a public trust level. Older people are often looked to for help by those on the street. A man in sweatpants is almost never chosen for help, unless that man is Evander Holyfield. Conversely, a man in a suit might also be overlooked for the trust of public help, because depending on the state of his hair and face, others in public might believe that he thinks it’s 1981. They might not be wrong.
Lastly, there’s an aspect of being true to your younger self. I wouldn’t wear suits around in my declining years because I didn’t wear suits around in public in my younger years. It would be conveying a version of my younger self that never existed. I wouldn’t wear sweatpants outside because, while I did/do occasionally wear sweats outside, I don’t want people to think I owned a comic book store or something. Also, I often do the verb in sweatpants and so will soon be smelled before being seen. I would like to avoid these things. I’m planning on being invited places for drinks and food and if I’m in sweatpants, well I can kiss those hopes goodbye.
The look I am settling on is a pair of elastic waistband khakis or trousers with a collared short sleeve shirt of either the golf or button-down variety. The pattern on the shirt can either be dots, vertical stripes, stars, or some kind of grazing animal like a giraffe or a koala bear. There will under no circumstances be any tucking of any kind.
I will wear a flat cap hat to round out the look of mellow older gent who sneaks a few beers on his way home from the grocery store. That or a bicorne. Or a zucchetto.
I will round out my old man look with some accessories. These will not be difficult to come by, as I find that I have been accumulating them as the years go on. I now carry around two different pairs of glasses (vision& reading), one glasses case, three writing implements: number one pen, emergency pen, and, in case of dire emergencies, a pencil. Since the gray hairs in my beard have begun acting as splinters, I carry a pair of tweezers. And since the world has descended into plague, a mask, an emergency mask, and, in case of dire emergencies, a light blue makeup pencil. My other accessories are a notebook and as my vision betrays me, a reading light. These will go well with my Old Man Look.
Remember that good-humored seen-some-shit Irish-Italian guy drinking a Schlitz on the bocce court at that corner pub that doubles as a Knights of Columbus in 1976. Yep, that’s me.
