Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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When I was in high school during the late 1940s, I saw a lot of fads in mens and boys clothing.
Take shoes, for example. At one time or another, there were penny loafers, saddle shoes and white bucks. I think all three of those reached “fad status” at one time or another.
Pants were another story. The legs of most men’s and boy’s pants in the late ‘40s were really full, almost baggy. For Christmas I got a pair of black gabardine pants. You wouldn’t believe how baggy the legs were. But pegged pants were starting to become the new fad. I had seen them in the movies at the Avalon Theater.
So I took those pants to the Otte Clothing Store tailor shop on North Main Street. Bill Otte was the owner, and I knew him pretty well as I was his paperboy a few years earlier. I told him that I wanted him to leave the upper part of the legs untouched. But from the knees down, I wanted him to make the legs gradually smaller. He did a great job, and I wore those pegged pants for years.
I think the most interesting clothing fad was strictly a Marysville thing. I believe it was started by a boy named Jim Beck. He had a loose fitting denim jacket that was unlined, and it fell well below the waist. To look at that jacket from the front was nothing special, but from the back it was really great.
Jim was a pretty good artist and he painted a couple of large cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, on the back of his jacket. The next thing I knew, another of my friends, Jerry Kingsmore, was wearing one of those denim jackets with Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck painted on the back. Then several other kids, both boys and girls, did the same thing.
I never had one of those denim jackets. My dad had just bought me a new corduroy jacket with a fleece lining. He said with winter coming on, it made no sense to buy an unlined jacket. So if I wanted one, I would have to buy it myself.
My income from after school jobs was sufficient to take care of most of my needs, like movies, milkshakes and things like that. But it just wouldn’t allow me to buy one of those denim jackets. If I ever got one, however, I had plans to paint Popeye and Olive Oyl on the back. I think that would have been perfect.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com