Never Plaid

I watched some golf last weekend, since my curiosity has been piqued by the Tiger Woods escapades and his subsequent hiatus from the tour.

One thing I noticed was a young player who wore plaid pants. The commentators couldn’t stop talking about this new tour golfer, and I’m guessing their mini obsession with him had something to do with a desire to find the next story in golf that did not involve text messaging and late night “clubbing” by an angry wife. You know the Tiger Woods situation is large when broadcasters are trying to distract us by discussing golf attire as if this player was a runway model. I realize we are looking to spin the PGA back into a clean image, but do we have to go back to plaid pants?

My mom made me wear hand-me-down plaid pants to school in 5th grade. I'm still hearing about it. Guys in my area don't let go so easily. Not only were they the standard wear of the anti-hip, but these particular checkered trousers split open in the rear seam during school one day, apparently loosened and frayed by the previous owner. I had to cover my exposed ass before the classmates noticed my alabaster Fruit of the Looms peaking out, so I whispered my embarr"ass”ing situation into the teacher’s ear and bolted out the classroom door.

My mom supported us on a secretary’s wage, so I had very few clothes, and the ones I had were not from the finest of fabric makers. My mom did the best she could, and hit up my Aunt Dottie to donate any clothes her gargantuan son grew out of. Dottie’s man-child Jackie was only a year older than me, but I grew slow and he sprouted as if there was an elbow resting on his pituitary gland. Jackie was athletic too, so all clothes got a lot of use, and came to me with wears and tears.

As a result, I carried a sewing kit in my book bag for emergencies like the plaid pants peak-a-boo. I quietly asked the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom so I could repair the tear in my trousers. I did so surreptitiously as if I was on a covert operation, fearing a rich kid who would not relate to a mishap like this and spot me. I spent years working my way on to the wealthy kid birthday party list, and I was not about to be put back on the misfit plebe category. Image is everything now and that applies to nine years old too.

I checked to see if the boy’s room was clear, then removed my torn clothes and took a seat on the bathroom floor as if I was settling in for a day at work in the garment district. I wet the thread and guided it through the needle, something I learned from my grandmother while watching TV next to her as she knitted macramé scarves and hats for the family. Growing up without a dad and around primarily females has some benefits, and learning these “girl” skills came in handy at times.

I tied the knot at the end, plunged into the end of the tear and began to pull it through. I was midway through my impromptu repair when the bathroom door flew open. “Oh, please let it be a geek and not somebody popular,” I thought to myself as I accidentally pierced my finger.

Worse than a rich dude, it was a tough kid who preyed upon the weak, and me on the floor in my underwear was definitely in the vulnerable category. This was the year people starting calling one another “gay,” and here I was with a thimble on and doing a box stitch I learned from my Nana.

I was called "Betsy Ross" from then on and suffered for my plaid pants stitchin for a long time.

And to continue along the lines of plaid pant memories brought forth by the stylish young golfer....

In tenth grade, a year in which we were all trying to find our place in the high school we were now attending, my wealthy buddy Mike Kane (from the other side of the tracks) asked me to join him on the golf team. I had never played an actual round of golf or even seen it played, but used to rip into balls with a baseball swing at the driving range and played miniature golf while vacationing at the Jersey shore. How hard could this sport be if old white men with swollen prostates excel at it?

And needless to speak of what kind of athletes filled the high school golf squad. I think it was half the yearbook staff; spoiled kids whose father's were members of the exclusive country clubs and had a putter in their boy's hand at age three. The type of dad who forced his kid into playing sports and helped their uncoordinated child along by buying him all the best equipment. You couldn't turn down a kid for a pickup baseball game if he brought a new ball, bat and catcher's gear. The geeks were always the catcher or a first baseman with a big, new, top of the line mitt. A good player with a future in the sport doesn’t invest in a first baseman’s glove, but this was a way into a game for the spaz with a big bank account.

...So, I lied to the golf coach and said I shot "in the low 80s," even though I had no clue what that meant. He gave me a tryout at the 100-year-old Country Club where I spent a couple summers cooking hot dogs and being a bus boy at banquets. I made fun of these golfers and now I was going to join their fraternity.

I stole my grandfather's clubs out of his unlocked garage (my justification that told me it wasn’t really stealing) that actually had a wooden shaft on a club called a "niblick." I went off to show some rich boys how the poor kids play sports.

I didn't know how to dress for golf and had only seen some photos of my Pop Pop playing in the Toro Lawnmower golf outing in the 50s. He wore Scottish knickers, so assuming that was proper golf attire, I rolled up my bell bottomed plaid pants to above the knee, used a rubber band to hold them in place and went off to play my first round of golf without a windmill or an animatronic alligator.

The coach said to bring spikes, so I wore the only ones I owned - baseball spikes, having no idea that he meant spikes that were pointy so they blended in with the manicured green, while still holding the stance when taking a full swing from the fairway.

I laced up the shoes, hiked up my basketball tube socks and showed up at the golf audition ready to kick some nerd ass.

Not only did the other players rip me for the attempt at looking like Bobby Jones of 1929, but they actually made me wait till they putted before I could go on the green with my non PGA-approved Hank Aaron shoes that made large holes on the putting surface.

The arrogant, dismissive look they gave me, along with the laughing and smirking is still a strong visual in my mind's eye. They played a threesome and I was a lonesome one-some, with the added humiliation of spraying the ball left and right and yelling, “look out!” every time I hit the ball. My final score was indeed in the eighties…for nine holes!

Recently, one of the members of the cliquey rich kid group requested my friendship on Facebook. I pressed, "Ignore" and had some modicum of satisfaction and revenge....