Hand Me Downs

When I was a kid I used to wear hand me down clothes. Being the oldest child in the family my hand me downs came from my uncle Dan. Dan and I were only a couple years apart and I would get his used jeans, shirts, jackets, and whatever my grandmother would decide Uncle Dan didn’t need or want anymore. I remember one day wearing a real neat pair of almost new jeans when Dan began complaining that I was wearing his new Levis. I protested saying that grandma gave them to me; he didn’t like that at all. Such is the process of gaining hand me down clothes, you have the argument that goes with them on an occasional basis when the hand me downer wants the apparel back.


I have a little sister and brother that are young enough to have had to wait quite a bit before getting my hand me down clothes, and I never got to have the argument with them. I was already old enough by the time they grew into my clothes that I was out and gone. They just accepted that there was a phantom big brother in the picture somewhere.

I had this strange friend when I was young. He wore the strangest sets of clothes. This was back when bell-bottoms were the fad and flowered rayon shirts were in. We used to dance in disco techs and sweat all the way through those ugly dang shirts.

Anyways, this friend of mine was even sort of stranger than the normal rest of us. His clothes were a little more flowerier, a little more pinkish, or rather salmon colored cause we’re guys, and I could swear he left a familiar sent in his wake. I asked him one day where he got his clothes and he said, “Hand me downs.” At that point the bell rang in my brain. I used to date his older sister, the reason for the familiar smell. My friend was getting his hand me downs from his sister, he dressed like a girl.

Peace and Balance,
John