And in my case, one first day set of school clothes really were a dud.

 

I ran across a story about a teenage girl in Florida who ran afoul of her school's dress code.  She was made to wear an oversize tee shirt and big red sweat pants that were labled "Dress Code Violation." The debate over this story is for another blog.

Fox News Channel host Gretchen Carlson ran the story on her daily program, and then asked her viewers to use social media to talk about the worst first day of school outfits that they ever had to wear.

It jogged my memory a bit, and I can only think of one bad outfit I ever had to wear on a first day of school.

September, 1967, seventh grade in White Swan.  For most kids at that time, or even now, the jump from sixth to seventh grade is a big one. Changing classes and teachers, regular P.E. classes where you had to wear gym clothes, and the start of noticing where you fit in the the social pecking order.  What you wore started to become important.

I came from a family where we didn't have a lot, but at the same time we had plenty. My mother was a school teacher and my father worked at a sawmill and  farmed on a small scale. There were four kids in my family and money was probably tight, even though I wasn't aware of it at the time. Also, almost all of the kids I went to school with were pretty much in the same boat in a socio-economic sense.

My mom did make sure we all had a new first day of school outfit, though. And I remember my seventh grade first day threads were a doozy.

I just remember a long-sleeved, mostly orange, plaid shirt and ugly brown pants that came from J.C. Penney in Toppenish, and some round-toed, brown tennis shoes that came from Savin' Sandy's discount store in Toppenish.  I remember that they didn't fit too well, the shirt was hot, and I was sure that everyone was staring at my shoes.

But here's the kicker. A new kid in school that year showed up in the exact same outfit.

He was even heavy like me and wore the same type of glasses. I thought "I'm not alone in my misery!" The two of us did go on to be good friends, and like most kids, grew out of that awkwardness and achieved some sense of style in our high school years.

Think about it. What was your ugliest first day of school outfit? Maybe the quote "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" really does apply, especially when it comes to some back to school clothes.

 

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