Old Farts in Carhartts—a.k.a., Pants on the Ground

Why, I have to ask, has it come to this?

Oct 09, 2024

smiling boy standing near rock formations during daytime — Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

That isn’t me in the photo, but it looks a lot like one of me in my childhood farm days. Now, I’m approaching a full-circle finish to life where I am back to needing clothes with suspenders. Since I didn’t find anything in the news interesting at a level that I wish to dissect, or I already covered it (in some cases, a lot), I decided to do a different kind of editorial today—a personal essay about the fun of turning 65:

Yup, I joined the Suspender Surrender Club this year at age 65, but am still waiting for Social Security to kick in because they jockeyed the date on me years ago. I was supposed to be retired by now. I always thought retired men wore suspenders in their old age because they had some kind of retarded fashion sense—that they came from an era I never knew where suspenders were actually thought to look good. That, or the first part of the brain to go feeble is the fashion sense. I had no idea this change in style was actually a matter of geriatric necessity until I hit sixty.

For the past five years, I've been putting off the inevitable like it was a colonoscopy. I'd tighten my belt until it felt like a corset, and I couldn't breathe. Eventually, even that wouldn’t keep my loins covered. So, I just hiked my pants more often and would complain that they don't make them like they used to—that for some reason the cut of the new Carhartts now causes every pair to fall off. Eventually, I realized it was the cut of my butt that was making them fall. It wasn’t there anymore. I couldn't see back there, so how would I know? But, over time, the unpadded butt bones that don't also sit so comfortably on bleachers anymore clued me in that something was now missing behind me.

This year it got bad enough that I had to stop the mower every round to hike the denim, or I'd be doing the lawn with my pants suddenly choking my knees while the neighbors were watching. The mower, you see, requires one hand on the handlebar to keep running, so it shuts off every time I use both hands to hitch my britches. As an alternative, I'd hike them on one side … then, halfway around the lawn, hike them on the other in order to keep one hand on the mower. However, pants don't hike up that well one side and then the other because the side you don't lift wants to pull the side you do lift right back down as soon as you let go.

So, I finally broke down and let my wife get me a pair of suspenders, helpful person that she is by making that offer. I hate messing with them. It's like saddling up a pair of pants. First, laying the pants out on the bed, getting the suspenders turned right and clipping the front pair of straps, then streaming the suspenders out so they have no twists and doubling them back so the ends that cross like an X fit to the back side of the pants to fasten. (God forbid you find out later on you've been walking around with the logo-stamped leather gusset at the center of the X inside out so you have to do this all over again.) From there, it's like climbing on the saddle to put on the pants. First, letting the suspenders flap down to each side, then stepping between them into the pants, then pulling one side up over one shoulder, then up on the other shoulder. Then running your fingers along front and back to make sure they have no twists due to pulling them on wrong. It's an event.

You might think I could just put my pants on like normal and then lay the suspenders over my shoulders and twist around to clip the back then clip the front by sight; but, no, my arthritic spine doesn't twist that nimbly at 65, so that would throw my back out; and my semi-retired gut—the only part of me that is still growing, aside from my ear lobes and nose hairs—doesn't allow me to see what I'm doing up front either. (On a bad day, neither do my nose hairs.)

I hate how the suspenders look, except that I'm mowing a lawn, so who cares? It's not a day for fashion statements. When I'm not doing something that demands both hands, it's back to the girdling belt and just hiking my pants up every minute as I walk along. I have, however, astutely avoided the pants-up-to-my-chest, Elmer-Fudd look by having my wife level the suspenders out the first time I put them on because she can stand back to see my feet in order to make sure my pants aren't riding above my ankles.

Finally, until I have to throw the work pants in the wash, they go back in the closet with the suspenders still on them to avoid resaddling next time. That's a bit like putting the horse back in the stall with the saddle still on to save time the next day, except the pants don't care.

Of course, tomorrow we’ll have news of Monster Milton slamming Florida and we’ll see if it’s really all that; but today it’s all speculation about what will happen. China’s falling apart all over the place … even worse than I’ve been doing … but that is old everyday news at this point. Ever since its Xiro-Covid policies, it’s been a centrally planned wreck. Headlines say most of America is now fearing World War III, but there has been plenty of reason to fear that for a couple of years now. Israel lighting up the skies all around it has amplified nearly everyone’s concerns.

So, for today, I’ll just finish wrestling with my suspenders to see if I can keep from strangling myself in a Gordian knot until we see what tomorrow brings. Then I’ll contemplate switching to old-people essays on life’s changes for a vocational change in my own life. Now, pardon me while I call one of the grandkids to figure out how to get the TV back off its games program where they left it and onto the television-for-old-people setting.

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Old Farts in Carhartts—a.k.a., Pants on the Ground

Why, I have to ask, has it come to this?

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