Dressing Down

Since retirement, it seems I have no need to dress up except for church functions. And even the Lutherans have gotten so casual my mother wouldn't recognize them as "proper" Lutherans - hatless women and jeans-clad teens.
 They even have a jeans day for all of us! And anyone is always welcome, dressed however! Personally, I fear my dear mother's voice would come down from Heaven if I were to wear jeans to church, but otherwise, I've joined the ranks of the officially down-dressed.
Now I'm living in logo T-shirts that tell everyone I've been to the Grand Canyon, sympathize with animals, once went to an Indigo Girls concert, and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Troutman family reunion.
Here's the problem. My mind sees jeans as good; my body says my gut will explode if I keep trying to suck in and snap that little copper button before the fat overflows. So, what to do?  Jeans say I'm cool, a woman of adventure, free from the constraints of  the perpetually girdled. 
Boomers gave us casual day at the office and the freedom to live in our jeans in our free time.  And in retirement Boomers can save us from the polyester coordinates worn so well by the perpetually perfect.
We may not manufacture our own clothes in America anymore, but by George, American marketers still aim to please and to peddle. They know we're chubbying into old age and they know we have our pride. Enter the miracle word:   STRETCH - no not your body.
Just let it roll around. Let the denim do the stretching. You can breathe in and out and the new wonder-jeans breathe with you like a comforting caressing broken-in girdle. And no puckered elastic sides!
My Boomer friend first told me to try stretch pants, but I thought the lumps would show.  Not so. Denim (with a little stretch) is tougher than you are. A flabby muscle is a malleable muscle, no match for a well-stitched made-in-China seam. 
I figure I've got another 10 years of wearing these fake jeans before moving into my "Golden Girls" phase - more if I lose weight.
I saw my 85-year-old cousin Anderson (weight 95 pounds) in jeans last week. She looked absolutely cute! Besides, as a good American, I'm morally obligated to be a strolling billboard for the Broad River Greenway, the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs, the endless pleasures of Myrtle Beach! And, yes, on dressier days, read my back!  Life is Good (available for $17.95 in earthy tones at your local '70s throwback store).

Les and Joyce Brown are retired from Gardner-Webb University. They will be writing this column each month, sometimes separately and sometimes together. The Browns enjoy  reading, writing, music and anything Appalachian. Les is a potter while Joyce tries to write a bit of poetry.