White is the loneliest color
My father was no fashion plate.
An office worker in a railroad outpost, he favored acrylic cardigans, flannel shirts, poly-blend pants and orange hunting caps imprinted with the railroad company’s logo. At home he often wore little more than saggy long underwear beneath an unbuttoned flannel.
Dad aspired to better clothing. One of his coworkers, who owned a small haberdashery on the side, wore suits to the office every day, and in my father’s sneering stories about the man’s needless overdressing, one could detect more than a hint of secret envy.
On Sundays, Dad tried his hand at sartorial flair. His palette was limited — some discount store suits, thrift shop shoes and an outdated assortment of clip-on neckties. With five kids and one income, he didn’t have a lot of cash to spare on church clothes.
I knew that, of course. So did my siblings.
But like all children of a certain age, we were ashamed of our parents — especially the day Dad wore white shoes with black socks and a blue suit.
None of us had actually noticed. Nor would we have cared a whit if a well-meaning but tact-challenged woman named Carmen Plappert hadn’t decided to correct my dad’s fashion faux pas right there in the middle of the crowded church foyer.
“You never wear white shoes with black socks, dear,” she said, addressing him as if he were a child. “That just doesn’t do. And you should never wear white shoes with your nice clothes unless they’re white, too. Then you can wear white shoes. But not after Labor Day.”
O, the humiliation. My father simmered until church was over, then treated us to a blistering sermon about nosy women and stupid fashion rules. Thankfully, there was no altar call.
Dad never wore white shoes with black socks again.
I learned the lesson, too. For decades, I have studiously avoided making my father’s mistake. In fact, I have never once worn white shoes or socks with dress clothes.
Until today.
I’ve been ill lately and haven’t had a chance to do laundry. Got up this morning and threw on a white shirt, tan trousers, a tan sweater vest, and a tan-and-blue tie.
Then I realized I didn’t have any clean tan socks. I dug through my sock drawers. Nothing. I subjected dirty socks to the sniff test. No good.
By then I was running late.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I made a bold, rash and perhaps inspired decision.
I had no tan socks. I couldn’t very well wear black, gray or navy socks with tan clothes. I did, however, have plenty of white socks. And I had a pair of white shoes with a tan stripe. Sure, they were casual, but all the colors matched.
I’d look pretty darn good, I realized. I’d be styling. People would admire my dramatic fashion sense. I would be a pioneer, a clothes iconoclast. OPUBCO employees everywhere would remember me as the guy who singlehandedly broke through the color barrier and spawned a workplace in which white-on-white isn’t a crime, in which — for that matter — lime pinstriped pants can be worn with floral-print Hawaiian shirts without fear of recrimination, contempt or snide comments; an environment in which white shoes coexist with black socks and black shoes intermingle with white socks; a world in which my father is vindicated as a visionary champion of fashion freedom forever!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Instead, people laughed at me. My wife, who works here, stopped dead in her tracks, covering her mouth with her hand as she dissolved into silent giggles. My boss pointed at my shoes and said quietly, “What. Are. Those?” A young colleague happily declared: “If we ever have to wear uniforms here, I want THOSE to be the official shoes.”
Sorry, dad. The world isn’t ready for us yet.
– Ken Raymond
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