CONFESSION TIME

The picture above makes me laugh. Oh, not at the Laker players; what's to laugh at there? It's their pants that make me laugh!

These are the kind of pants - baggies, I call them - that I see on teenagers who appear to be taking a great chance on having their drawers part company with their bodies right out in public. My grandsons, who are all now fine men, were born too early to dress like this, but I have a very handsome great-grandson who at 16 walks around with the crotch of his pants knocking against his knees and the top of his pants barely hanging onto his behind. It is not at all attractive, although he thinks so.

The other day Jer had a college basketball game on TV and all the fellows were wearing uniforms similar to what appears above on the Lakers -- specifically the baggies. Now that's the sorriest look for a team uniform I've seen in a long time. I started to ask Jerry if those guys who wore those baggies didn't find it hard to run and jump in them...but before I got that stupid sentence out I realized that of course they didn't find it hard to wear. They had grown up with them feeling that way, and anyway they wouldn't have worn them if they weren't comfortable!

So I stopped my comment mid-word and told Jer to erase what I said, which is my way of acknowledging that I'm wrong. I then said to him, "Well, the guys at college when I went sure wore uniforms that looked a whole lot better than that."

Later I dug out my old 1953-54 George Pepperdine College yearbook to look at that year's basketball team. These guys were my friends. I had dated a couple of them but mostly was friends with the bunch, as Pepperdine was then a very small school near downtown LA and we all knew each other.

I thumbed through the pages as I walked back to show Jerry how spiffy all my friends looked in their basketball uniforms -- and before I could show Jerry I burst out laughing: those guys wore shorts so small that they barely exceeded speedos!

I was shocked and surprised. I had not seen that picture in a long time and I guess I'd gotten more used to baggies than I thought! Man, I'm gettin' old, starting to think the old way is best!

And I told Jerry to erase that too.