Out of the thousands of things I can write about, why did I pick this? Nostalgia I guess.
When I was growing up as a kid most people wore jeans or corduroys. Levi’s was the number one brand for kids. It wasn’t cool to wear any other brand.
And we didn’t have a million different brands like today.
But we were tough on our jeans. We crawled in the dirt on our knees or wrestled or we climbed on trees, fences or roofs. We fell on the cement when we played touch football in the streets or crashed on our bikes.
And we wore holes in the knees or ripped them all over from doing various things when we played. But we didn’t throw them away. Instead, all of our moms sewed patches on them to cover the holes. Little patches for rips from nails or fences. Big patches for the holes we wore out in the knees.
Once a pair of Levi’s was too beat up to wear my mom would save it and cut little squares or circles from it to sew on to our better jeans to hide the holes. I don’t know. I never see kids with patches anymore. I guess they went out of style with bell-bottoms, headbands, and tank tops.
I often see young women with ripped jeans on the bus or train. What we tried to hide is the style now.
But I know what you mean wearing patches on jeans back then.
@77nick77 Do you remember the brand of jeans from Sears called Toughskins which were popular in the early 70s? They were jeans for boys that were very durable and had re-enforced knees built in, and they came in all sorts of ugly colors including plaid. They were also cheaper than some of the other brands so my mom, being the frugal woman that she was, always bought Sears Toughskin jeans for my little brother. Needless to say, he hated wearing them, but they did hold up well to the rough and tumble play that you described.
For all I know, Toughskins may still be a Sears brand even today. If so, I sure hope they improved the style since the 70s.
Ahhh! Nostalgia—makes me want to call my brother and ask him if he remembers Toughskin jeans.
Yep, lol, I’m trying to, But I still have psychic scars from being laughed at by my friends for wearing straight-leg Levi’s when they all had bell-bottoms.
@Twang I spent my early years in Michigan (late 60s/early 70s). I have very fond memories of ice skating. Every winter, a portion of the neighborhood park would be flooded and allowed to freeze over into a nice little "home-made’ ice skating rink.