Wearing the Uniform

Rather than relate today's medical saga, I'm going to tell you a story that involves a bit of family history and what seems to be a family quirk. Let's begin.

These two people are my great-grandparents, my father's father's parents.



A couple of lookers, eh? Here's the thing: Rasel was Shlaime Baer's second wife, so he had I don't know how many children altogether, five of them with her. It seems she carried some intense DNA along from her own parents, because for a couple of generations, Rasel's siblings' female progeny, all looked like this:



Clearly, I'm talking about the large-jawed women in the back, not the pretty woman seated on the ground with the child. (She comes into the story later.)

The men, on the other hand, were all good looking, and not the same; for example, my grandfather Louie when he was about 19:



And my father Jack when he was about the same age:



At this point, you can almost see more of Jack's mother in him, the pretty lady in the other picture, above. Anyway, the weird thing is that the men in the family all aged into virtually the same face. This isn't a great picture, but here's Louie old:



And Jack:



(That's Wonderful Niece with him, btw, about ten years ago.) When I was a kid, I saw others of my grandfather's cousins who had virtually the same face as my father. (My grandfather was gone by this time, but I had seen many pictures.) Which was weird.

Okay. So, last week K and I went for lunch one day to a nearby IHOP and we sat in the booth and I could see that she was staring at someone who was sitting across from us but who was just a bit out of my range of vision. I leaned over and she whispered "There's a man there who looks just like Grandpa, but not as good looking." I casually turned and there he was, an elderly heavy set man with my father's hair and bushy eyebrows and the face shape so characteristic of Rasel's family. What he lacked were the distinctive clear blue eyes that they all had. He was close, maybe close enough to be a distant cousin, but not quite Jack.

Katie whispered again: "He's even wearing the uniform."

Ahh. The uniform.

As my father got older, he wore virtually the same thing every day. Now, I don't mean he wore literally the same clothes, because he was something of a hygiene freak, but like Monk, if you opened his closet, you would see multiple copies of the same thing hanging there. He wore black pants. He wore white button-down shirts, short-sleeved. (Unless it was a holiday or he was going out somewhere, in which case he wore a blue shirt, like in the picture above, or for extremely dressy occasions, a blue collared golf-type shirt, which looked like a tent.) I'm guessing he wore the uniform because he found clothes to wear that he was comfortable in, so he acquired multiples so he could wear it every day. The grandchildren, apparently, thought this was part of his quirky charm. Except ... uh ...

I do that too, as I've mentioned before, but I never thought of it this way until K said that the man in the restaurant was wearing Grandpa's uniform. K did mention earlier in the summer that perhaps I might want to ... vary my wardrobe a bit. The truth is, I don't. Maybe I will some day, but for now, I'm very happy. I wear jeans every day. I wear a t-shirt, preferably v-necked, or in the summer, a Land's End cotton tank top. Over that I wear a long-sleeved button down shirt, sleeves rolled up. In the summer, I wear a denim shirt, of which I have several. During the school year I dress up a bit and wear a plaid shirt, or stripes, or a nice solid, maybe even in pink. When I dress up, I wear a Chico's micro-suede shirt, and I don't roll up the sleeves. And furthermore ...

My sister does it, too, wears a uniform, although hers is different. She wears cotton-knit shorts, year round, often with a print cotton top and a denim shirt over that. She wears Birkenstocks. She carries a huge purse. I prefer to carry no purse, and put everything I need in my jeans pockets.

So I ask you, is there anything wrong with picking a uniform and sticking to it? I have my reasons, most of which involve my weight and various other body issues; my father probably wore what he wore because of his weight, too, I'd guess. I could pass on worse traits to my children, no? At least I don't have that giant jaw thing to hand over to them.


WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1812
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon