Grizzard grew up in rural Georgia, where teenage chic was button-down shirts, slacks, and "Weejuns", which were apparently some kind of shoe. Rural Georgia of the 1960s evidently went off the beaten path; Lewis didn't even see a hippie until he moved to Atlanta for college.
This reminded me of some of the styles I've noticed. I hit high school in the mid'70s, the years of the Energy Crisis and President Ford. The height of style was T-shirts, blue jeans, and long hair, which I guess was '50s retro. About the time I graduated the disco styles hit, but no senior would have been caught dead dressed like that.
The disco era passed and I didn't pay much attention to the teeners until the baby pacifier craze of the early '80s. You'd see them, male or female, walking around in public with a baby pacifier stuck in their mouth. This lasted half a year or so, and was always good for a laugh. My group always wanted to look "tuff"; these guys just looked stupid.
Sometime after that came the dorky shoes and high-water pants. The shoes were the worst - sneakers on steroids, with long, floppy tongues like harlequin's shoes, and three feet of brightly colored laces. The laces were never tied; they simply trailed along behind. I used to step on them at the mall. Marvelous fun. I'd see pin-up pictures of nubile young teener girls in scanty bikinis. Not bad, until you got to the bottom. Baby, look at those shooooz....!
The sneakers with the floppy tongues are still around, but the shoelaces have vanished. The new style seems to be to wear them with no laces at all; some of them don't even have eyelets. So the teeners schluff along scraping their feet, because if they lift them to take a normal step the shoes fall off.
Okay, I can see the shoe thing; you just about can't *buy* much else, other than boots or dress shoes. But in the early '90s came the shorts. Wear brightly patterned boxer shorts, pulled up to the navel. Wear huge baggy shorts, that look like two separate knee skirts joined at the waist, with the waistband 2/3 of the way down the crack of your ass and the crotch hanging down between your knees. We be cool, dude!
About that time the dorky haircuts came in. Sort of a cross between a Mohawk and a flat top, they left a patch of hair on top the approximate size and shape of a Kotex pad. That seems to be fading now, replaced by the Brylcreem look, with a hank of hair falling across the face.
A couple of years ago came the funky beardlets on the males; the approximate size of a credit card, under the chin only, like a very short goat ruff.
The most recent thing I've noticed is the funniest. The Carp Look. The teeners wander around with their mouths held wide open like they're retarded. You'll see them relax and close their mouths sometimes, then they'll remember, pop it open, and look around quickly to see if anyone noticed. Back when I was a teener I had enough problems without looking like a complete dork too...
People tell me it's just age and maturity vs. the styles of youth, but as far as I'm concerned, dorky is dorky...
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