Dapper Dad

 

Do you know what these are?

Most men today hardly ever dress up, but those who do can likely identify these as... cuff-links!  They're jewelry used instead of buttons to fasten the ends of sleeves on French cuff shirts.  They link both sides of a sleeve cuff, hence their name.  

In style they can range from the simple to the ornate.  These are not even gold-plate; they are gold-tone metal with plastic jewel-like end tips.  But they are monogrammed - with "S.L.", my late father's initials!

My father came from a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.  For an incredible 13 years in the 1950's and 1960's, he put himself through night school at Brooklyn's prestigious Pratt Institute while working days at a company called Richmond Screw Anchor, when its headquarters were also in Brooklyn.  They designed and fabricated various steel components used in industrial concrete construction - things like bridges, dams, and airports.

Dad was fond of joking that around his 12th year at Pratt, as he was rushing up a flight of stairs on his way to class one evening, a professor he'd had years earlier saw him and greeted him with, "Ah, Laitinen!  You teach here now?"

In mid-climb, Dad breathlessly replied, "No, I'm still trying to get out!"

At any rate, he did have a day job, which explains why college took so long.  His day job paid for all his schooling and a hobby that he enjoyed for years - dressing well.

Back then, everyone dressed-up for all sorts of occasions.  They dressed-up for work, of course.  They dressed-up to attend sporting events, of all things!  That meant wardrobes needed to stay stocked with dress clothes.  And to hear Dad himself tell it, he was more than happy to comply.  He enjoyed nice clothes because they helped give him a broader identity than being just another guy from Brooklyn.

On occasion, he'd joke that his penchant for clothes ended when he got married - and had to spend his money on other things!  Maybe by default, being married and having a family gave him the broader identity clothing never could.  After he had kids, his wardrobe truly became unremarkable, and frankly, I was surprised when years later, I learned of his former fixation on fashion.  Nevertheless, while he was single, Dad apparently helped make one particular New York City clothing store quite profitable:  the legendary Barney's.

After a stunning run from discounter to bespoke destination retailer, an over-leveraged Barney's closed in 2020.  They had begun in 1923 with low-priced menswear, and for a while billed themselves as the seller of more suits than any other store in the world.  They employed nearly 150 tailors, a stunning number for any clothier.  Expansion eventually added 21 stores to their portfolio, including several in Japan.  

Twice they tried sustaining a store at Northpark Mall in fashion-crazy Dallas, but surprisingly those attempts both flopped.  Maybe partly because Dad, although by then also in Texas, no longer spent his money on clothing.

Shucks, Barney's had already enjoyed a good run with Dad as a customer anyway.  He'd begun patronizing their Manhattan store in the 1950's, when Barney's transformation from discount to designer was under way.  My Dad couldn't afford the highest of their new price points, but he managed to contribute mightily to their bottom line anyway.  Virtually his entire wardrobe came from Barney's.

Since I never knew Dad as a fashion plate, and I never saw him wearing French cuffs, I never saw these cuff-links until I was cleaning out his bureau after he'd died.  And he died of dementia, which rendered his memory unreliable at best, and literally empty on the worst days.  So I'm not completely certain he purchased these cuff-links at Barney's.  But even his sister said he never bought clothing anywhere else back then, so it stands to reason that these were theirs.

Throughout his life, though, he did wear a lot of neckties.  Since they were part of the corporate American office uniform up until his retirement years, one didn't need to be a fashion plate to need neckties.  Fortunately, Dad genuinely enjoyed getting new ties for Christmas and birthdays, which made shopping for him easy!

And I can say that going deep into his dementia journey, although his neckties hadn't been from Barney's for decades, he could still remember how to tie them.  Even his bow ties, which Mom ordered from a company in New England specializing in non-trendy accessories.  Since I could never master the art of tying a bow tie, the fact that Dad could remember how, years after his diagnosis, seemed remarkable to me - and a testament to how some things we learn at an early age can stick with us no matter what happens to our brain.  When I finally had to begin pre-tying his neckties, and then helping him put them on for Sunday church, the process itself took me back... Not just to my teenage years as Dad was teaching me how to tie my ties, but further back, to days I never knew, when in my imagination he was himself learning how to master the art.

A good necktie knot isn't as easy to craft as one might think.  And the conventional process by which a person learns how to do it usually involves a surprising amount of interpersonal proximity, as the tutor necessarily comes close to their pupil's neck.

When I worked at an upscale clothing retailer during my college years, helping another man tie his own tie was one of the most awkward parts of my job.  Actually, now that I think about it, back when tailored clothing was fashionable, much of the process required to achieve that tailored aesthetic involved distinct levels of personal-space-invasion.

Which brings us back to Barney's.  Dad had a wonderful tale about a day when he was in their store, purchasing a new suit, and having it fitted by one of their fabled tailors.  As Dad stood in a three-sided mirror, dressed in his new suit, a tailor busily marked necessary alterations to its drape.  

Suddenly, an old man darted into the fitting room, and intentionally strode up to Dad and the tailor.  He authoritatively reached out and pulled at the fabric, gauging the material's nap.  He leaned in to scrutinize several markings the tailor had made.  With barely an expression of any kind on his face, or even in his voice, he finally pronounced judgment:  "Good fit." 

And at that, he turned, and strode out of the fitting room as purposefully as he'd entered it.

The tailor kept marking and measuring, silently.  As if nothing unusual had just happened.  But Dad was unsettled by such a bizarre interruption from such a tactile stranger.

"Who was THAT?"  Dad incredulously asked the tailor.

Without missing a step or looking up, the tailor mumbled, "Oh, that was Old Man Barney."

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Treating Fake Affection

 

My family's last collie, Feliz.  He hated having his picture taken!

 

We humans tend to crave affection from others.

We tend to seek affirmation from and acceptance by other people.  And the more reciprocal that affection, affirmation, and acceptance becomes for us, the stronger our relationships tend to become.

And strong relationships can be a powerful balm in the midst of all that troubles us.

Unfortunately, developing rewarding human relationships can be a daunting challenge.  Selfishness, neuroses, and personalities usually get in the way.  It doesn't matter the category of relationship, whether professional, familial, romantic, or platonic:  Cultivating a productive, reciprocal partnership with another human being usually defies ease.

Occasionally, we will meet somebody with whom we just "click", and relationship development seems to happen all on its own.  For those of us who've had those types of relationships, we know how rare they are.  How much nicer life would be if we had more of them, right?

Well, maybe this is where the increase in pet ownership comes in.  Because as our American society becomes ever more fragmented, as more people seem to celebrate those things that separate us, human beings may increasingly be turning to pets for the affection, affirmation, and acceptance we used to seek from other humans.

Dog ownership in America, for example, has been growing for years.

City parks designed for dogs have become a huge deal now.  Time was, only doting ladies of a certain age would bring their fluffy pooch into a store or restaurant, but now far more people feel comfortable doing so.  In my college days, I didn't know any fellow students who had a dog or cat.  Responsible pet ownership costs money and time - two things college students tend to lack.  These days, however, judging from all the students living in large college housing complexes near me, many of them own dogs, because most times of the day, they're out walking each other.  

Hey - with some dogs, it can be difficult to tell whether the canine or the human is leading the walk!

Even in my suburban neighborhood, it seems the percentage of dog ownership has increased exponentially recently.  Of course, there have always been neighbors with dogs - shucks, my parents and I used to have a handsome pure-bred collie who loved his daily walks.  However, dog walkers have become an even more ubiquitous presence on our shady streets.

Statistics say cat ownership is growing as well, but here's the thing about cats:  Humans may "own" cats, but how often is it more accurate to say that cats own their humans?  Cats may be affectionate, but dogs seem to be far more affirming and even forgiving of their humans.  Which for many people may make them more rewarding to have around.  One usually doesn't have to work hard at winning the affections of dogs.

But how genuine might that affection be?

Maybe for humans who've conditioned themselves to be satisfied with immediate gratification, it doesn't matter if affection of any kind is genuine.  Or maybe it's just that affection from a dog doesn't need to be genuine - just enjoyable, no matter how existential it may be.  And in the grander schemes of life, maybe it doesn't matter either way.

Last night I had a conversation with a neighbor whose family got their first dog last summer.  As my neighbor has joined the legions of other daily dog walkers, he's noticed that many of them carry around handfuls of doggie treats.  Whenever they see another dog, they eagerly hold out hands full of the treats and give the other dogs an opportunity to nosh on those treats.  

When I used to walk our collie, that never happened.  People simply didn't walk around with doggie treats.  However, I understand why it's become a thing:  It's an easy and superficial way of keeping the dogs quiet as they pass, and establishing what they think is a sustainable, affirmative rapport with the other dog for the next time they encounter each other.  Which, of course, for neighbors, will probably literally be again tomorrow.

And it doesn't take long to condition dogs into expecting any human they encounter will have hand-held treats for them.  I've watched some of the interactions just in the street in front of my house, and can see where some dogs now actually expect and anticipate treats.  As soon as the treats have been passed out, the dogs utterly lose interest in the humans who've just fed them.

Another neighbor of mine further down the block, however, has grown tired of this practice.  He mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago that he wished people wouldn't try to buy his own large dog's affections with handfuls of treats.  Yes, they ask permission before presenting their hand to his dog, but now it's too late.  He has realized what has happened with his own dog.  His dog automatically searches for hands - anybody's hands - because he's been conditioned to expect a tasty treat from it.

His dog no longer relies on natural canine instinct to decipher "friend" from "foe".  His dog no longer rewards natural affection from humans as a sign that they're safe for him to approach.  His dog now simply looks for the treat.  And when he doesn't immediately find any, he turns sullen and disengaged.  

That's like a lot of us humans, actually.  Right?

I'd already noticed that about his dog.  When they first got him, his dog would come up to me and let me pet him and fuss over him - no foodie treats from me at all - and he was content to be rewarded by physical affection.  As I'd chat with my human neighbor, his canine companion would stand next to me, pressing into my legs, letting me pet his furry back.  That was his reward - a type of companionship, which he appeared to even enjoy returning.  But now, the dog comes up to me and instantly - instinctively - searches for my hands with his greedy schnoz.  And since he won't find any doggie treats in them, he reflexively turns away in disgust.  It's sad to experience.  And my neighbor doesn't like it either, but what can he do?  He says almost everybody else in the neighborhood carries treats with them, and he's too mild-mannered to ask them to stop.  It's probably too late now anyway.

I have noticed that my next-door neighbor's pet has also started sniffing my hands when we first approach each other, and when he doesn't find any treats, he's soon trotting away.  That's not how he first treated me when he was a puppy.  His owner, like my other neighbor, has noticed the change, but he doesn't know how to deal with it either.  And frankly, it appears that both dogs still treat their owners with an affection that is stronger than the immediate gratification of hand-held treats.  Which, for them, is a good thing.  And since they're not my dogs, none of this is really any problem of mine.

Nevertheless, I wonder what it says about our society in general.  As loneliness increases in our country, perhaps it's simply one of the coping mechanisms people are creating for themselves.  Exploiting dogs with treats seems a less risky tactic than trying to exploit humans with our far more valuable emotional, financial, and relational assets.  Especially for people like me, who seem to have a difficult time cultivating healthy interpersonal relationships.

After all, when dogs "bite the hand that feeds them", it's mostly a physical pain.  But when humans do it, the pain goes far deeper.

The dogs, meanwhile, seem to treat this new trend in stride!

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