Ol' CBS and His Western Shirts

I wore my western shirt a few days ago, the one Jackie hates. I put it on once every summer to remind her how much she despises it. She was ironing it this morning and grumbling the way she always does so I told her once again that I inherited it from my father, Clyde Bauer Stodghill, Ol' CBS.

She never thinks that's true. "I've heard the stories about him and seen pictures of him," she always says, "and he had good taste. He'd never wear a western shirt with those funny little snaps instead of buttons and those awful patterns."

Well he did buy it while he and my mother were visiting her sister in Colorado in 1969. Wherever he went he wanted to fit in, be right in style, although when I was in Colorado I never saw anyone wearing a western shirt.

Anyway, if Ol' CBS had gone to Ireland he would have come back with an Irish walking hat and a shillelagh - one of those little clubs Irishmen carry under their arms to use for hitting people. Had he gone to Germany he would have been wearing liederhosen and one of those funny hats with a long feather sticking up from it when he returned. No matter that Germans don't wear those things and Irishmen seldom carry a shillelagh. He would have thought they did, or certainly should have.

Ol' CBS never bought just one of anything that was smaller than an automobile. If he needed a shirt, he'd go into a store and buy three. If his hat was getting shabby he'd go to a hatterie and come out with a new fedora, a homburg and maybe a borsolino. He once saw a tobacco pouch he liked and bought six. I still have five, four of them brand new.

So when Ol' CBS found himself in Colorado he bought three western shirts and a couple of those funny string neckties with metal studs on their ends. Jackie shuddered when I told her about his favorite western shirt, black and yellow checks with red stripes. She's thankful he wore that one out. That one and the blue and white one with red, green and purple stripes. I'll admit I'm pleased about that myself.

I'm also glad Ol' CBS never went to Texas. Sure as anything he would have come back with a Stetson and Jackie really would have drawn the line if she caught me wearing one of those. Not that I would, of course, unless I had dipped too heavily into the gin. She draws the line at that, too, now that I'm in my eighties. I assert my independence, though, by wearing that western shirt. A man has to stand up for himself every so often, doesn't he?

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