I’m wearing the same shirt in both photos. *sigh* I didn’t do this on purpose, I just really liked that shirt. Yeah, THAT shirt. I rocked that short-sleeved, v-necked, velour top. Ok, maybe not, but look how I complemented the stripes by wearing a bright yellow turtleneck underneath for my 6th grade photo. I was truly entering the 80s. Truth is, my clothing selection was slim pickings at the time. It was probably either wear that, or one of my brother’s hand-me-downs. We weren’t poor, that’s just how it was.
Back then (1970s and 80s), there wasn’t a Justice, or shops that catered to preteens. Even if those stores existed, I’m pretty certain my parents would never have taken me there anyway. Where I grew up in Richfield, Wisconsin, you usually bought your clothes at the same place you bought your chicken feed—Farm-n-Fleet. You could get anything there. Clothes, shoes, farm equipment, school supplies, toys, tools, electronics, etc. My mom would take us there the week before school to do all of our school shopping. Jeans (the only brand available was Lee), check! Tennis shoes, check! Shirts, check! Underware, check! Notebooks, pens, pencils, Trapper Keeper, check! And we only shopped like that once a year. If you ripped your clothes, they were patched not replaced. All of my jeans were patched by the end of the school year, some multiple times.
I’m not complaining, though. Things were a hell of a lot simpler, even if we were fashion-impaired.