Speaking of Farm Fashions...
Mar 28, 2010
In my last post I vented (tongue-in-cheek) about how some farmers don't dress like farmers. After reading that post, my cousin Dave reminded me that there are still a few folks in agriculture who uphold traditional farm fashions.
Cousin Dave has driven a bull rack professionally for more than 35 years. He said one of the things he enjoys most when he pulls into a ranch in Kansas or Nebraska is seeing, " a boy maybe 7, 8 or 9 years-old, wearing a cowboy hat bigger than he is. They're always dragging around a rope, trying to lasso their dog or every fence post they see. Those kids are attached to their dads like shadows. You just know that you can come back in 20 years and they'll still be there, farming or ranching just like their dad and grandpa."
I'm fond of the other end of agriculture's fashion lineage, those farmers who wear bibbed overalls as their uniform. Some wear them for their multitude of pockets; many wear them to avoid wearing a belt; more than a few savor the flow-thru ventilation provided when they leave the side buttons unfastened on hot summer days. If my annual visits to the State Fair are any indication, more than a few of our older rural folks still consider a freshly laundered pair of of bibbed overalls as a fashion statement.
As a mechanic, I'm somewhat of a fashion rebel because I wear a pliers pouch on my belt. Other mechanics, the ones who have come out of tech schools, abhor wearing pliers on their belt. "Good mechanics have proper tools," they like to tease me. "Only
farmers wear pliers on their belt."
I'm sort of proud to wear those pliers...
