Today I showed up in a silky golf shirt, a Callaway jacket, and a hat from the SSP Golf Tournament Committee. The chorus was immediate: “We didn’t know you were a golfer!”
I’m not. I just liked the shirt, the jacket fit, and honestly, I had bed head!
It’s not the first time my outfit has raised eyebrows. Sometimes I throw on a hoodie from a previous school where I worked, only to be met with: “Do you like that school better than ours?” or even “You can’t wear that here.”
It reminded me of my college days. When I transferred to Missouri State from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, I proudly wore my Kappa Sigma Greek colors. Frat row scoffed: “We don’t recognize those colors here.” Their pushback didn’t stop me; it only inspired me to help start a new fraternity chapter in Springfield.
Go back a little further, and I’m in junior high. My best friend once got mad at me because I wore athletic tape on my football socks outside of practice. He thought I was showing off. Truth was, hygiene hadn’t quite clicked yet — I had slept in my practice socks and just forgot to change them.
Funny how clothes carry so much weight. There’s a phrase, “clothes make the man.” ZZ Top claimed “everybody loves a sharp-dressed man.” And we know too many tragic stories of kids who have died in the streets because of the colors they wore.
So here’s my question:
Are we putting too much emphasis on what people wear, instead of the person underneath the fabric?
Sometimes, I just want to wear what’s comfortable… and doesn’t make my butt look big.
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