As a youngster I disliked wearing jeans, I much preferred overalls but apparently overalls for youngsters were falling out of favor. The J.C. Penney store quit offering overalls in the smaller sizes I needed and I bought the last two pair the Troudt Clothing Store stocked.

My mother was wrong when she said I looked for nails and barb wire on which to tear my overalls, I think barb wire and nails looked for and frequently found me. I may have helped popularize today’s tattered clothes fashion trend.

I was inspired by Grandmother who said patched clothes were a sign of friendship and to never be ashamed when wearing clothes with patches provided the garments were clean.

I should never have purchased the two pair of overalls from Troudt’s. Not only did I not like the dye pattern, the cloth was rotten. Though unworn, they must have been 50 years old and soon faded and developed holes.

When I could no longer buy my size of overalls, I switched to wearing blue jeans with both a belt and suspenders. Yes, suspenders. My grandfathers wore suspenders and a few friends used belts to hold up their britches. Most of my friends wore their jeans without either belts or suspenders but I thought that was risky business, especially since I didn’t like tight clothes.

So I wore a belt for appearances sake and suspenders to hold the loose fitting jeans in place.

All of this discussion leads me into a story I received Monday from Carrie Classon about her husband’s suspenders. A part of her story follows:

My husband, Peter, is taking no chances. I knew this about him before I married him. Peter has a plan for everything and a plan in case the first plan doesn’t pan out. My father would call this “belt and suspenders” planning. Peter’s been walking around in a belt and suspenders ever since I’ve known him.

Peter’s planning has made surviving the pandemic a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. We never run out of anything. That might sound impossible, but it’s almost true. Peter buys everything in quantity and notices when supplies start to run low. This allowed us to adopt the “Every Other Week Grocery Buying Plan.”

Occasionally, I would consume more milk than Peter had estimated, and we had to dash to the local convenience store. This prompted Peter to create the “Powdered Milk Back-Up Plan.”

“Powdered milk is great!” Peter said.

I don’t know if powdered milk is great, but it’s better than no milk at all.

Peter is also the one who tried to enlist me in the “Hiking Pole Plan.”

I resisted mightily. I first saw hiking poles about a decade ago, used almost exclusively by people walking on dry sidewalks where they seemed entirely unnecessary.

“That’s the dumbest thing ever,” I declared. Then I met Peter. Peter was enthusiastic about hiking poles.

“They’ll catch you if you slip!” Peter said. “You could fight off a dog—or even a bear—if you were attacked!” Peter had lots of good reasons I should adopt the “Hiking Pole Plan” and I wasn’t buying any of them.

“How would I talk?” I asked him. “I need my hands to talk and, if I had hiking poles, I wouldn’t be able to say a word!”

Peter did not seem to think this was such a terrible idea. But then one day we got a lot of snow and I decided to hike with ski poles. They were super helpful. By the time the snow melted, I had gotten used to them. I tried hiking poles. I liked them. I still haven’t had to fight off a bear, but I’ve been using them ever since.

“You see?” Peter said, “Aren’t they great?”