THE GREAT BLUE JEAN CONSPIRACY
by Talks With Beagles
by Talks With Beagles
When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I somehow got myself elected to the student council. I wouldn’t have even ran for it if I hadn’t been talked into it by my teacher. She promised me that I would get to see democracy in action. We had just finished learning all about American democracy and why it was better than the Communist dictatorships in the Soviet Union. The teacher said that I had shown more interest in this subject than anyone else in the class, so I was a natural for the student council. Also, I kind of felt sorry for her because she couldn't get anyone else to run.
At my very first meeting, the teacher [not the same one who talked me into it] announced that the first order of business was that we had to pass a resolution that said kids couldn’t wear blue jeans to school any more. This kind of stunned everybody for a minute and I was the first one to break the silence with: "You can’t do that, that’s Communism!" Now, you may wonder what blue jeans have to do with the theories of Karl Marx. Actually, not much at this point. You see, in those days, Communism was thought of as the ultimate evil in the world so, after awhile, it had became a generic term for anything that was really bad. I suppose people today would say," That sucks!", and it would mean about the same thing. At any rate, the teacher told me I was out of order and to shut up and sit down. As soon as I sat down, somebody else took the floor and tried to explain to the teacher in a more rational manner why we just couldn’t do this. You see, in Chicago in the 1950s, all the kids wore blue jeans and all the adults didn’t. When I say "all the kids", what I really mean is "all the boys". Girls probably wore dresses or something, but nobody paid any attention to girls in those days.
There were only two other kinds of pants in the world in those days, good pants and wash pants. Good pants were expensive to buy and had to be dry cleaned when they got dirty, which also cost money. When you wore good pants, you had to be good so as not to wreck your pants, which is why they were called “good pants“. Kids only wore their good pants to church or other places where they had to be good anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Wash pants were worn by adults who worked in jobs that would wreck their good pants if they wore them there. The trouble with wash pants was that they had to be starched and ironed after they were washed. Also, they were so thin and flimsy that you could wear the knees out of them in about one day. No self-respecting kid would wear wash pants, so the only thing left was blue jeans. This must sound pretty elementary to you, but the teacher just didn’t get it. Teachers in those days were even dumber than the kids they taught, but that’s a whole nother story. All she kept saying was that there had been enough discussion and it was time for somebody to make a motion, which nobody wanted to do. Right in the middle of this, some stupid girl got up and announced that a new type of wash pants had recently been invented. These new wash pants did not need to be starched and ironed, and they were even cheaper to buy than blue jeans. This is a perfect example of why nobody paid any attention to girls in those days.
By this time the teacher was beginning to realize that this wasn’t going to be an easy sell, so she decided to tell her side of the story. It seems that, sometime after World War II, a whole new category of kids had been invented. These kids were called "juvenile delinquents" or "hoodlums". The hoodlums wore blue jeans too, of course, because they were still kids. I don’t know why they even invented these hoodlums in the first place, because all they did was give the rest of us a bad name. Some adults were beginning to think that all kids were hoodlums which, of course, was not true. Apparently, some of these misguided adults held a meeting and came up with the brilliant idea that, if they could make the hoodlums stop wearing blue jeans, then they wouldn’t be hoodlums any more. One of the kids at our meeting came up with a pretty good solution to this whole problem, but the teacher wasn’t interested. Why not make only the hoodlums stop wearing blue jeans and not us? Then it would be easier to tell the hoodlums from the rest of us and they would stop giving us a bad name. Like I said, the teacher wasn’t interested, because she already knew what she wanted us to do. Another kid had a pretty good idea too, although, it would still be Communism. Why not have the principal make this rule instead of the student council? It’s his job to make rules anyway and, if we do it, we won’t have a friend left in this school. The principal had nothing to lose in that respect. The teacher told us that option had been considered, but it was decided that it would "look better" if this idea came from the student council.
At this point, I had to go out of order again, because this light bulb lit up in my head, and I had to tell everyone about it. "You know what?" says I, " This really *is* Communism! This student council is what they call a ‘puppet government’, just like what they have in the satellite nations of the Soviet Union!" The students were delighted with my statement, because they thought I made it up just to be a smart aleck and aggravate the teacher, which is what she deserved. Of course, I hadn’t made any thing up at all. We had studied all about this stuff not long ago, but I guess I had been the only one paying attention that day.
Things got really crazy after that. I guess the teacher was frustrated because we weren’t as easy to fool as she thought. We had all known her for years, and she had a reputation for being kind of mild mannered, for a teacher, but now she got real mean. She told us that there would be no more discussion and that it was time for somebody to make the motion, which nobody still wanted to do. She said that school was letting out in about fifteen minutes, which was true, but that nobody would be allowed to leave until this resolution was passed, and that we would stay here all night if we had to.
There was a lot of mumbling and grumbling from the kids, but I don’t know if everybody was thinking what I was thinking or not. What I was thinking was that I was walking out that door when the bell rang even if I had to fight my way out, but I never got to do that. Some brown nose (which was what we called a big suck in those days) made the motion, and another one seconded the motion, which was a real disappointment to me. Then the teacher said, "All those in favor , say ‘aye‘.’’. A few people said "aye", but not very enthusiastically. Then the teacher announced that the motion was passed and entertained a motion for adjournment. It was the teacher herself who was out of order now, because she never called for the "no" votes, and I told her so. "Very well", says she, "I’ll call for the "no" votes; but there better not be any, because I want this motion to pass unanimously. " Well, too bad for her.
This was my finest hour. When the teacher called for the "no" votes, I stood up like a tall oak tree and proclaimed with a voice like thunder;" NO! LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT TALKS WITH BEAGLES VOTES ‘NO’ ON THIS MOTION!" The secretary was starting to write this down when the teacher said; "Don’t write that down. Talks With Beagles has been out of order all day, so his vote doesn’t count. Let the record show that the motion passed unanimously." So, If you go down to the Sidney Sawyer Elementary School today and look up the minutes to that student council meeting it will say that the motion passed unanimously, which is not true. That’s why I’m writing this story now. I think that, after all these years, somebody should set the record straight.
You may wonder why I call this a conspiracy, well here’s why: All over the city of Chicago, during that very same week, student councils were passing that very same motion. By the weekend, signs had been put up on business establishments all over the city saying, "No one admitted wearing blue jeans." It got so that a kid couldn’t go anywhere in that town wearing blue jeans. Our parents must have been in on it too because, when I got home from school that day, I found several pairs of those new wash pants laid out on my bed. Coincidence? I think not!
I wish I could tell you that we organized a strike or a boycott to fight this thing, but we didn’t. We were only kids after all, and the 1960s were still a few years away. Sure, we talked about it a lot but, in the end, we folded up like a pair of cheap wash pants.
Years later, when I came home from the Army, I found that everybody was back to wearing blue jeans again, even the girls, who people were starting to pay attention to by then. Even some of the adults were wearing them. This was probably because all the people who used to be kids had turned into adults and taken over the country. So, I guess you could say, we won in the end.
Be that as it may, the most important part of this story is not the part about the blue jeans. The most important part of this story is the part about that student council meeting. You see, I originally joined the student council to see democracy in action and, instead, I saw Communism in action. Now, there is nothing wrong with teaching kids about Communism, but you should call it “Communism“, and not try to pass it off as democracy, like those people did. It is for this reason that I have never voted to approve a millage proposal or anything else for the schools, and I never will. If I didn’t learn another thing from this experience, I learned how to vote "no", and I have been voting "no" ever since. TWB
********************************************************************************At my very first meeting, the teacher [not the same one who talked me into it] announced that the first order of business was that we had to pass a resolution that said kids couldn’t wear blue jeans to school any more. This kind of stunned everybody for a minute and I was the first one to break the silence with: "You can’t do that, that’s Communism!" Now, you may wonder what blue jeans have to do with the theories of Karl Marx. Actually, not much at this point. You see, in those days, Communism was thought of as the ultimate evil in the world so, after awhile, it had became a generic term for anything that was really bad. I suppose people today would say," That sucks!", and it would mean about the same thing. At any rate, the teacher told me I was out of order and to shut up and sit down. As soon as I sat down, somebody else took the floor and tried to explain to the teacher in a more rational manner why we just couldn’t do this. You see, in Chicago in the 1950s, all the kids wore blue jeans and all the adults didn’t. When I say "all the kids", what I really mean is "all the boys". Girls probably wore dresses or something, but nobody paid any attention to girls in those days.
There were only two other kinds of pants in the world in those days, good pants and wash pants. Good pants were expensive to buy and had to be dry cleaned when they got dirty, which also cost money. When you wore good pants, you had to be good so as not to wreck your pants, which is why they were called “good pants“. Kids only wore their good pants to church or other places where they had to be good anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Wash pants were worn by adults who worked in jobs that would wreck their good pants if they wore them there. The trouble with wash pants was that they had to be starched and ironed after they were washed. Also, they were so thin and flimsy that you could wear the knees out of them in about one day. No self-respecting kid would wear wash pants, so the only thing left was blue jeans. This must sound pretty elementary to you, but the teacher just didn’t get it. Teachers in those days were even dumber than the kids they taught, but that’s a whole nother story. All she kept saying was that there had been enough discussion and it was time for somebody to make a motion, which nobody wanted to do. Right in the middle of this, some stupid girl got up and announced that a new type of wash pants had recently been invented. These new wash pants did not need to be starched and ironed, and they were even cheaper to buy than blue jeans. This is a perfect example of why nobody paid any attention to girls in those days.
By this time the teacher was beginning to realize that this wasn’t going to be an easy sell, so she decided to tell her side of the story. It seems that, sometime after World War II, a whole new category of kids had been invented. These kids were called "juvenile delinquents" or "hoodlums". The hoodlums wore blue jeans too, of course, because they were still kids. I don’t know why they even invented these hoodlums in the first place, because all they did was give the rest of us a bad name. Some adults were beginning to think that all kids were hoodlums which, of course, was not true. Apparently, some of these misguided adults held a meeting and came up with the brilliant idea that, if they could make the hoodlums stop wearing blue jeans, then they wouldn’t be hoodlums any more. One of the kids at our meeting came up with a pretty good solution to this whole problem, but the teacher wasn’t interested. Why not make only the hoodlums stop wearing blue jeans and not us? Then it would be easier to tell the hoodlums from the rest of us and they would stop giving us a bad name. Like I said, the teacher wasn’t interested, because she already knew what she wanted us to do. Another kid had a pretty good idea too, although, it would still be Communism. Why not have the principal make this rule instead of the student council? It’s his job to make rules anyway and, if we do it, we won’t have a friend left in this school. The principal had nothing to lose in that respect. The teacher told us that option had been considered, but it was decided that it would "look better" if this idea came from the student council.
At this point, I had to go out of order again, because this light bulb lit up in my head, and I had to tell everyone about it. "You know what?" says I, " This really *is* Communism! This student council is what they call a ‘puppet government’, just like what they have in the satellite nations of the Soviet Union!" The students were delighted with my statement, because they thought I made it up just to be a smart aleck and aggravate the teacher, which is what she deserved. Of course, I hadn’t made any thing up at all. We had studied all about this stuff not long ago, but I guess I had been the only one paying attention that day.
Things got really crazy after that. I guess the teacher was frustrated because we weren’t as easy to fool as she thought. We had all known her for years, and she had a reputation for being kind of mild mannered, for a teacher, but now she got real mean. She told us that there would be no more discussion and that it was time for somebody to make the motion, which nobody still wanted to do. She said that school was letting out in about fifteen minutes, which was true, but that nobody would be allowed to leave until this resolution was passed, and that we would stay here all night if we had to.
There was a lot of mumbling and grumbling from the kids, but I don’t know if everybody was thinking what I was thinking or not. What I was thinking was that I was walking out that door when the bell rang even if I had to fight my way out, but I never got to do that. Some brown nose (which was what we called a big suck in those days) made the motion, and another one seconded the motion, which was a real disappointment to me. Then the teacher said, "All those in favor , say ‘aye‘.’’. A few people said "aye", but not very enthusiastically. Then the teacher announced that the motion was passed and entertained a motion for adjournment. It was the teacher herself who was out of order now, because she never called for the "no" votes, and I told her so. "Very well", says she, "I’ll call for the "no" votes; but there better not be any, because I want this motion to pass unanimously. " Well, too bad for her.
This was my finest hour. When the teacher called for the "no" votes, I stood up like a tall oak tree and proclaimed with a voice like thunder;" NO! LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT TALKS WITH BEAGLES VOTES ‘NO’ ON THIS MOTION!" The secretary was starting to write this down when the teacher said; "Don’t write that down. Talks With Beagles has been out of order all day, so his vote doesn’t count. Let the record show that the motion passed unanimously." So, If you go down to the Sidney Sawyer Elementary School today and look up the minutes to that student council meeting it will say that the motion passed unanimously, which is not true. That’s why I’m writing this story now. I think that, after all these years, somebody should set the record straight.
You may wonder why I call this a conspiracy, well here’s why: All over the city of Chicago, during that very same week, student councils were passing that very same motion. By the weekend, signs had been put up on business establishments all over the city saying, "No one admitted wearing blue jeans." It got so that a kid couldn’t go anywhere in that town wearing blue jeans. Our parents must have been in on it too because, when I got home from school that day, I found several pairs of those new wash pants laid out on my bed. Coincidence? I think not!
I wish I could tell you that we organized a strike or a boycott to fight this thing, but we didn’t. We were only kids after all, and the 1960s were still a few years away. Sure, we talked about it a lot but, in the end, we folded up like a pair of cheap wash pants.
Years later, when I came home from the Army, I found that everybody was back to wearing blue jeans again, even the girls, who people were starting to pay attention to by then. Even some of the adults were wearing them. This was probably because all the people who used to be kids had turned into adults and taken over the country. So, I guess you could say, we won in the end.
Be that as it may, the most important part of this story is not the part about the blue jeans. The most important part of this story is the part about that student council meeting. You see, I originally joined the student council to see democracy in action and, instead, I saw Communism in action. Now, there is nothing wrong with teaching kids about Communism, but you should call it “Communism“, and not try to pass it off as democracy, like those people did. It is for this reason that I have never voted to approve a millage proposal or anything else for the schools, and I never will. If I didn’t learn another thing from this experience, I learned how to vote "no", and I have been voting "no" ever since. TWB
It was easier to reprint the whole story than it would have been to tell it all over again. All the grades weren't represented in the student council, just the upper ones, either fifth or sixth through eighth. There wasn't actually an election. Our teacher asked for nominations, but everybody who was nominated declined. Later, she approached me privately about it and, like I said, she talked me into it. Now that I think of it, she must have persuaded some others too because there were 10 or 20 kinds in that first meeting. I attended a couple of meetings after that, but my heart wasn't in it. One day the teacher announced another meeting and I refused to attend. I don't remember hearing anything about a student council after that. Maybe it was an experimental thing and they gave up on it after awhile. Or maybe they had formed it for the express purpose of passing that blue jean resolution and dissolved it after they had gotten what they wanted. Do you remember having a student council at your school?
I don't understand, you said that you wanted to talk about morality from a philosophical point of view, but not from a religious point of view. What's the difference? Okay, technically religion is theology not philosophy, but it seems there is a fine line between the two. Until a few centuries ago, all intellectual people were called philosophers, but then the other disciplines branched off on their own. Even today, though, we sometimes speak of philosophy in a narrower context, like political philosophy or artistic philosophy. If you want to isolate morality from religion, you are chopping off a few thousand years of its history. Secular humanism only dates back to about the Enlightenment of the 18th Century. Anyway, there is lots of philosophy in the Bible. The whole book of Proverbs immediately comes to mind, and most of the myths seem to have a philosophical slant to them. The letters of Paul in the New Testament contain a lot of his personal philosophy, although most religious people have historically taken it for gospel. Technically, "gospel" only refers to the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Gospel means "good news" in Greek, and it has been applied to the life stories of Jesus. Just because something is in the Bible doesn't make it gospel, although a lot of people seem to think it does.
There is nothing about the 50s that I remember fondly, except the trips I made to Michigan.
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