Goodbye, Pants
April 25, 2011 in Fashion
My longest relationship was with a pair of pants. Nothing in my life has comforted me or stood by me, sometimes literally depending on what they were caked with, the way these pants have.
I bought my logger-front, duck-colored Carhartts in September of 1999 right after I finished up the worst job of my life and was starting anew on my university’s logging team. There I was, drinking Coors light and running around with a chainsaw just like the cool kids. I fit right in thanks to my pants. Logging team only lasted a year, I got tired of the drama so my Carhartts and I moved on.
They were my workpants that I dragged through three years of erosion research, soil science field trips, and various hikes through the Central Coast of California. Repeated washings shrunk them to my frame and they frayed at the cuff where they dragged on the ground. They are the only pants I’ve ever had that I didn’t need a belt and didn’t need to cuff. A visiting student took a picture of me for her journalism class in my Carhartts and purple hair because she liked my style. When all else failed around me, I could put on my trusty pants and wander off into the chapparel and escape. No brush was too thick and no mud hole too deep that we couldn’t get through. Read the rest of this entry →
