May 1, 2013 Article

The Old Coot lets his shirttails fly!

By Merlin Lessler

“Tuck in your shirt!” My mother said that to me a million times when I was growing up. Our world was a prim and proper place back then: shoes shinned and tied in double knots - shirts buttoned – mandatory wearing of clean, white underwear (it had to be white and it better be clean if you got in an accident. What would the doctors in the emergency room think of your mother if it were otherwise?) And, of course, a tucked in shirt.

Times have changed. And, at the risk of looking like a delusional old coot trying to pass as a youngster, I now let my shirt flap in the breeze like today’s young males who live in a privileged world. Privileged, because they never hear their mothers say, “Tuck in your shirts!”

And why not? Who wants a bunch of wadded up cloth under their belt, struggling to free itself from exile? But, it doesn’t always work, this protest by an old coot against the tuck-in rule. Just the other day, I ran into a “shirt-tuck” law enforcer. It happened at a breakfast meeting of old guys who graduated from the same high school more then half a century ago. “Hey man, I don’t know if you know it, but your shirt isn’t tucked in!” He was giving me the benefit of a doubt with his “I don’t know if you know it” phrasing, affording me the opportunity to claim it was a memory problem (forgetting to tuck it in) and not a violation of the tuck-in-your-shirt rule.

But, it wasn’t a memory problem; it was outright defiance. Plus, I felt sorry for the shirt. It hung in the closet for weeks. Then, when it finally got out, was hidden under a crew neck sweater, except for a slim half-inch of collar that peeked out at the top. It must have been heartbreaking for the beautiful, five color, plaid shirt. But, my un-tuck proclivity afforded it considerable exposure as it waved, “Hello,” to the world from below the waistband of my sweater. The sweater was not tucked in either. I only mention the latter because extreme shirt-tuck-in rule followers tuck in everything: T-shirts, regular shirts, and yes, even sweat shirts and sweaters.

“To tuck or not to tuck, that is the question, Jimmy,” as Clark Kent might have phrased it if he was discussing the issue with cub reporter, Jimmy Olsen back on 1950’s TV, in the era when mothers pelted their sons with an unending barrage of, “Tuck in your shirts.” I have the answer for Jimmy, “Don’t tuck!” And, for my fellow old coots, “Don’t act your age! Let your shirttails fly! Let them flap in the breeze! Let freedom ring! (Followed by a chorus of God Bless America, if you’re so moved.)