levi's 503s and crispa white tees

This line from the song “Last Year’s Man” kept ringing in my ears:  “And though I wear a uniform I was not born to fight”.  The song was by Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, a favourite.  Truth to tell, I still don’t know what the song is all about.  I’d read somewhere in the net that it was one of his most profound songs and his fans can’t seem to agree on a common meaning.  It has passages about Jesus and Cain as well as on Joan of Arc and wounded soldiers and, Babylon and Bethlehem.  It’s the manner of how Cohen sang it that attracted me most to it—the same attribute that made me to like and repeatedly listen to his albums, especially his early recordings.  It was mainly that single line though that prompted me to write this post.

Cohen's 1971 LP

It was the late rock icon radio disc jockey Howlin’ Dave (aka Dante David) that introduced me to Cohen.  Day in day out my battery-operated transistor radio was tuned in to DZRJ, the Rock of Manila, when I was an aggie student in UP Los Baňos from 1976 to 1983.  It would play on as soon as I entered my dormitory room from my classes until the station signed off.  Sometimes, it would automatically play in the morning to wake me up if I failed to turn it off the previous night.  I think I’d spent more time listening to this radio station’s disc jockeys than my professors in the university; maybe that’s one of the reasons why I failed to earn my degree in spite of my seven-year stay.

Parading North Korean soldiers

What’s so significant about that line?  You see, one of the things I hated most about my college life was the compulsory military training, the Reserved Officers Training Course (ROTC), which every able-bodied male student had to attend for four semesters before he could graduate.   This did not only made me to stay long hours under the scorching heat of the sun obeying, mostly stupid, orders from the cadet officers but it also prevented me from growing my hair long—really long, which was an obsession at that time to look like a rock star.  The more underlying reason was my then growing resentment over military abuses and its role to prop up the brutal administration of then dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  The army fatigue-coloured uniform that we have to wear every training day (Saturday) came to represent some sort of a shackle that prevented me from doing and pursuing things I always wanted to do during what Bob Dylan sang as “times they are a-changin”.  This may sound trivial and senseless, even selfish, today, but for a restless and rebellious young man it’s all that counts. 

Mingo tired after playing with my flip flops

I only started hating being in uniforms on my first semester in UPLB.  Suddenly, I can attend my classes in whatever outfits I chose.  Some male students came to their classes in shorts, either athletic or cut-off denim, and wearing ordinary rubber slippers, very much unlike the pricey Brazilian flip flops of today’s youth.  I now can’t help but remember my bearded and hairy Spanish-looking mate—that’s how we call each other in our dorm organization, the Calma Bulls, instead of the usual brod—who loved to wear Adidas football shorts and would most likely elicit giggles from girls when he’s seating on the steps of stairs of buildings while waiting for his classes.  Football shorts from the late 70s were really, really short compared to the ones worn by players today and this was the cause why one of his testicles would dangle out to the full view of the incoming girls—thus, the impish giggles.  I don’t know if this contributed to why he was able to hook up with one of the most fantasized girls in the campus, which my juvenile mates had good-humouredly but politically incorrectly described as teeming with lady loggers and farm hands.

Some things remain unchanged

In high school at Don Bosco (Pampanga), it was well-pressed navy blue pants and white polo shirts and black leather shoes, except when we’re allowed to wear “civilian” clothes during very special occasions.  Denim jeans, no matter how blue and “unfaded”, were a no-no.  But even during these special occasions, I dreaded wearing “civilian” clothes because of an earlier incident.  I was attending a meeting of the Boy Scouts on a Saturday and I came beaming with pride wearing for the first time a printed polo shirt.  The feeling of pride was short-lived though.  As soon as I had taken a seat, a classmate deridingly commented, “hey classmate, nice shirt! It looks like it’s made from chicken feed sack!”  I was taken aback and shame overcame me and could not retort a reply.

Improvised flour sack blanket

At that time, of course, chicken feeds were bagged in printed cloths instead of the usual jute or plastic sacks so common today.  We may not be rich just like most students of Don Bosco but my mom would never buy empty chicken feeds cloth sacks and have these sewn into our—my father, younger brother and I— polo shirts.  More than a couple years later, though, wearing collarless shirts made from flour white sacks, with the name of the company prominently displayed, became fashionable.  These were the same flour sacks popular among poor families as baby diaper materials and sewn together into blankets.

Prettified shirt from flour sack 

I kept that incident at the back of my mind and had greatly influenced my choice of clothes to wear during my seven-year stay in UPLB.  I initially settled with wearing my “civilian” clothes of my high school years during my first semester.  Realizing these were so “baduy”, a slang during my teen years that’s associated with “low class” fashion, I started building my wardrobe of denim jeans and t-shirts—mainly Levi’s and Crispa.

My last pair of Levis, a 501

I would have loved to have Levi’s 501s but they were expensive, so, I opted for the cheaper 503s, whose fit I really loved, and bought these in the only authorized Levi’s outlet in Pampanga—Laus Men’s World in San Fernando.  The first ones that I bought in 1976 were less than, if not a little over, one hundred pesos!  I also did not want to unnecessarily financially burden my parents and requested my mom to just buy me Crispa white t-shirts—it’s not that I was a Crispa Redmanizers fan, it’s just that I found them simple, was comfortable wearing them and no one would mistake them for chicken feed sacks.  More importantly, this get-up helped me to blend with the crowd, so to speak.  A Sigma Betan seatmate in my Spanish language course once asked me: "Are you really a Kapampangan?"  Realizing my puzzlement, "you don't dress like one," she continued.  

Available after all these years

For seven years, I roamed the vast campus of UPLB in my Levi's 503s and white Crispa t-shirts.  Every Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning, you’ll find my backpack crammed with my clean change of clothes for the week—at least five white tees, five white under wears and at least a couple of denim jeans—as I travel back to UPLB and the same number of clothes, but this time dirty, as I go home to Bacolor, Pampanga for the weekend.  Isn’t it ironic, I was supposed to hate uniforms but I was practically wearing them for seven years in UPLB and for another three years when I transferred in GAUF? 

The truth was I did not see my outfits as uniforms.  They were neither prescribed by the university nor any person in authority but were my practical preference.  I was happy wearing them and, sincerely, I did not pine for any other clothes.  I was absolutely, and is still, happy with them.

My oldest Lee jeans

I’ve actually come full circle.  Lately, I’ve been wearing mostly white tees, although none of them was a Crispa.  Maybe, one of these days, I’ll ask my wife to buy me a couple. Levi’s 503s are now out of production.  But even before they did, I’d already switched to Lee’s when I started working.  Because of the really low pay in NGOs—which I really don’t regret as it was the most rational choice to continue my advocacies as a social activist—and one who’s starting a family, I realized I had to give up wearing 503s and searched for cheaper jeans that were equally, if not more, tough and durable.  With Lee’s, I could have button flys and still have a few change for a t-shirt.  And so, it was Lee button flys and mostly coloured tees when I roamed rural villages of Luzon while reporting in various Quezon City-based offices during my employed years. The same outfits I brought to my failed 5-month stint as a development volunteer in Mombasa, Kenya.

My fave Lee cargo

Up to now, my wardrobe is still dominated by my Lee denim jeans—not necessarily button flys—and cargo shorts and various white tees.  But this time, I don’t go places; I don’t work.  I’m just a stay-at-home aging man; a househusband trying hard to be blogger. (30)