When I was a little girl, I most often got to wear wonderful hand-me-downs from my older brother before passing them on down to my youngest brother. It was quite appropriate for a tom-girl who hated wearing tops of any type anyway.
I wore a lot of wranglers, peanut pants and corduroys.
As I grew taller & older, I came to be of the size that I could acquire the hand-me-downs of my oldest two sisters. My favorite of these hand-me-downs came from Kimbies, who wore them through the mid-seventies...leaving evidence of busted ink pens in the back pockets, before passing them on to Curty boy.
Curty Boy wore them through the early eighties, spilling battery acid along the thighs & crotch, then busting out the knees along the way.
When I acquired them, I transformed them into cut-offs. In the early nineties, I used replacement guitar strapping to save them from completely falling apart. It has now been about ten years since I have had the nerve to throw them in the washing machine. I just don't think they could hold up to one more rinse cycle, one more tumble ... they have done good to hold up for over thirty years of this clan.
Last week a new, old pair of hand-me-down Levis' made the transformation from blue jeans to cut-offs. Today, I'd like to pay tribute to Kim's Hand-Me-Down Levi's...
*Kim's hand-me-down Levi's
Worn by all of us
Handed down three times
white, worn and tattered
three generations old, but thats never mattered
Kim's Hand-me-down Levi's
handed on down in the order we were born
a little bit older and a little more worn
easily found, but not easily torn
Kim's hand-me-down Levis' worn by Kim, Curt & me
And sometimes I can see Kims' hand-me-down Levis
Kind of in me.
*Originally written by me, back in 1993...the year of the guitar strap. This poem has been posted before on another blog, but seems to be calling to me today...peace/love people.
Posts
7 years ago
275 comments:
1 – 200 of 275 Newer› Newest»I love the sentimentality you find in clothes. My wife and I are the same way. She has a pair of sweat pants that her mom painted all the kid's rooms in. I have gobs of stuff to numerous to mention but I will one-A pair of hiking boots that have seen 2 continents, several mountain tops and innumerable memories now serve as bookends for my Nat. Geo collection.
You go with your Levis!!!!!:)
Very sweet! :)
I am embrassed, though, that I just had to Google "peanut pants."
jeans like wrinkles - all telling a story...
and I too am off to google to figure out what the hell peanut pants are...
Wreckless~ Hiking Boots to Book-ends! I love it! These things are keepers!
Justrun~ Lol, Ok, I just googled it myself as I wasn't even sure it was a true term but knew that was what we called the super low-rise back in the 70's. One button & a short, short zipper or more commonly just two buttons. Lol!
Yes indeed Sweetie...those hand-me-down-levis are the very best! and so are you! Hope all is well....and that you are having a "marvelous" Summer...it's finally somewhat cooler here! :-)
I'm engrossed in a book called "Middlesex"...oprah's latest book pick...check it out...I think you would like it!
I swear you and I have to be related somehow! My jeans I never ever throw away ... but I'm selfish too because there is no way I would hand them down! Even if I wasn't the baby in the family. They mine Rick James. ALL MINE!
Vicci~ Will have to check Middlesex out! TY. Levi's are like a fine wine, getting better with time.
Sponge~ We're connected brother-love, no doubts! I, too, am guilty of the keeping. Lol, pair pictured started in the 70's w/ Kimbies, the 80's to Curt & then ushered to me and I still wear 'em (at least to the beach)
An emotional attachment to an old pair of jeans...I can totally relate to that :)
Silly SLB....LOL! they were called pea-knuckles, got me why, but that's about how big they were....the lowest of the low low risers! Clink! Baby! To levi's and the low spark!
I'm here! Singleton said party on the porch, so I left the college library and rushed here as fast as I could.
You know I love this poem. Three times the love and memories in those short shorts, worn with wild abandon and stained by life's dirty little handprints. Beautiful.
Peace and bring the clink! tink!
.. spilling battery acid along the thighs & crotch..
Wait, what?!
I honestly love being let into yours and your family's past, makes me think there is hope for the family I hope to create someday.
hand-me-downs jeans are the best! I love them!
I had to bust up laughing when I read orhan kahn comment! I was thinking the very same thing! Please explain that!~ ouch! LOL!
I also have to agree with him... I love reading about you and your family! You all are the best!
Hammer~ Lol, so glad I have found someone else who understands these sentimental strings.
Eric~ Lol...TY
Orhan~ There's always hope, even if ill-founded ;). The funny white stains are remnants of scars left by automotive repairs done by my brother...lol.
angela~ Thank you & lol, I explained... the other spill marks apparently were more severe as they literally ate through the jeans.
Guys...come over here!
Lol...You are funny! I'll see what if anything I can do about that size!
Off to delete WV
I'm here wicha
Oh thank you baby, you supersized it!
Yeah, I have specs, too. That thing was tiny torture
whew, the bats are here!
ahhhh, the secrets a teeny tiny porch party will tell......
the flight of the bumble bat
did we lose skinny?
and all of its serendipitous grace
Lol... live & learn. I think I successfully got the word thingy off too.
maybe
bumble bat! cracking up!
You did skinny, good job.
crack open a beer and lets boogie
its off sister child, and thank you, hell , I don't need anymore "squinch" lines in my face!
sing, I knew you'd like that
bumble bat makes me think of the phrase....that's about as useful as a football bat....
never heard that
Sleeping ages me anymore...smooshing my face sideways into that pillow
I ran out of beer, drinking BBs red wine, so if I just fall off the chair, forgive me....and oh yeah, skinny, you're the baby, you;ll have to come take care of me if I break a hip!
It's a very sacarstic expression, but always makes me laugh... football bat!
Sip sister...the spirits are strong!
That's is funny, skinny
sing, no breaking anything on my watch
what the hell is a football bat? God, I'm gettin' old!
oh, don't tell me.......
Not tonight....
on wine.....
a football bat
picks on the blind bats
Orhan tried to get me to get messenger, but I could never get it to download.
The person who first introduced me to a football bat also had some sage words of wisdom...
'don't fry bacon in the buff.' Hahahha
A football bat is um, fucked up.
Lol.
I'm fucked up, but not a football bat
If you call something a football bat, you are calling it effed up.
I know, like "that makes as much sense as a screen door on a submarine"
useless as a football bat
hey guys, WTF
Lol...yes, exactly!
did orhan start this?
No way, it was Skinny
well I thought it started with this instant messanger biz, like fed-ex or western union, and ended up with football bats!
No, it was the bumble bat that started it! Lol...Orhan is innocent!
The little chat box was about as useful as a football bat.
you better tell orhan to get out of the shower and defend himself, because things are getting out of control. That damn bumble bat started it!
I am at fault
the bumble bat rides the night
slb...i totally agree with you, even though I still dont know what a football bat is....bumble batatchya!
Lol...is Orhan the bumble bat and hey, what is a bumble bat?
I told you what a football bat was.
Lol
hey! Bat that!
I made it up and breathed life into it
One day, I'll do a poem called flight of the bumble bat
Eric~ You are not at fault for the ground has not been split :)
LOL--the earth rumbles with laughter
Could somebody please go get Orhan...This is America!
Oh great you breathed life into something wonderful like a flying bumble bat and then I go and get my football bat and start swinging
It was art, skinny. I took two or three
I'll send my man servat to get Orhan
geeves, go to austrailia and find Orhan Khan
i did! He'll be here in a minute!
Ya' know Sing, most men I know take longer to shower & fix the hair than I do! Ditto there, eh?
cool. I'll let my imaginary buttler keep going, though
yeah, baby!
TINK!
I love to take all the hot water in a shower
clink! tink!
Tim just Henna'd Shinerbach on his arm, then forgot about it...Oops! Smeared henna!
SLB....Tink ya back baby! Orhan, for crying out loud.....get your buns over here!
I think it's like when all the hot water is gone is how you know you have showered long enough? lol, and rarely a moment sooner.
I used to be, anyway. Sometimes in the winter when its cold, i'll still take all the hot water, if no one else is showering
Well, f*ck me. You were here the whole time. I keep yo-yoing from Singleton's to Kimmies blog looking for ya'll.. let me just change my moving head.
Sing, you sound impatient
Nah, not at all, red wine......
Orhan....man, you gotta defend yourself.....
red wine!7&7
clink
Done.
You guys really should install MSN chat so that you can live conference chats, like this. I'll get around to writing a up a simply install & use guide on DoRP so that we can have these niice chats.
So.. how is the lovely night in Florida?
Overcast day here in Syn.
they've got all these bats going on!
Sorry about the windy road Orhan!
I tried several times to load the MSN messenger, but it repeatedly stopped.
Orhan tried to get me to get messenger, but I could never get it to download.
I will dedicate a post to help you along :)
Its raining in detroit, the giant rats are using the busses as life boats
it's a piece of cake in Florida....
nice. I miss the ocean.
clink
No, it was the bumble bat that started it! Lol...Orhan is innocent!
OMG! Instant classic.
<3 you guys.
Thanks...hopefully my computer isn't too messed up. I keep getting error messages from blogger with some code to email them. LOL.
It's hot & humid here. Crickets are loud, so is the toad.
It's them who inspire it
you know how it is around here.
i told them you weren't too blame and they just started talking football.....
We've been having the strangest weather here lately. (It may seem like I've chosen the cliche topic of conversation but you will soon learn that Australians and British people are actually fasinated by the arms and legs of mother nature).
I do hope to make it over to Florida next year. I've cleared it with the missus (you're going to America to visit two women?).. but I do hope you guys return the favour someday and come to Oz.
sing, you were instigating us!
oh you've gotta come, and bring her too! Clear it good!
You Americans love your trouble ;)
Nah...
yeah.....
oh you've gotta come, and bring her too! Clear it good!
She travels regularly, but I told her I want to do this alone. This is about us, as cold as that may seem she understood.
I'll hopefully cross your great nation and if I spare the time pass through Canada. You guys ever been to the Red North of Aye?
Sorry if I seem so formal, I am a little shy and nervous.
Peace & Love, even with a suit on ;)
Yes, bring the missus! She may never wanna go back home though! ;)
orhan,
i've never been anywhere
less the beach
and that
is everywhere
and eric,
you miss the ocean.....
Ok, well then leave her back there and stumble through Canada on your way to the Sunshine state and in your stiumblings ... lose the suit & sit for a spell. ;)
A Party By The Sea!
The ocean calls to me
daytona
sanibel island's white sands
love in the slaty seas
gain the blues...
salty, not slaty
I could use a road trip
blues and the pinks and the blacks
it's a circle od sorts
butterflies are free
This trailer park boy will certainly lose the suit.
You guys would absolute love Sydney during the summer months. When I move into a house I will invite you all to stay for a week or so during the peak of the sunshine-months.
Speaking of the ocean; reaquainting myself with her beauty just recently during the dead of night. I looked into the horizon, which sat under the bright white moon.
This the day I left my job.
She told me it would all be okay, that life is the wave that draws from the shore and breaks back on return.
Simply beautiful.
free as love was in '67
reverse those years and I am finally alive
Oh, I believe it. There's something about sitting under a vast sky taht is very grounding, defining.
Indeed.
playing by the numbers....
so we should have a florida party....
I live in the ghetto, but its an old ghetto so the trees are massive. Late at night when the wind is blowing through their leaves it sounds like the ocean...
that's beautiful, slb
OK, a Florida party ...next June?
In the ghetto..
We share a lot more that a love of one another :)
It's true Eric & I am so pleased.
sounds like detroit
trees ahundred feet tall
and twenty houses in a row, noarded up or burning
the trees saw everything crumble
Reverse the years again and you are like me
I just need to get my hands on a passport and I'm over there. I will begin studying early next year, so forgive me if you may have to move the schedule around for me so that I can travel during the holidays. You will know ASAP, of course.
76, 67
the spirit is the same, but only a different name
Orhan, you live in the ghetto too?
yup, and we'll bring the ghetto to the ocean...and the tides to the times....and we'll wade in the water...and the circle will be unbroken....
IMYSVVFM
Austrailia would be really cool
I have a giant suitcase, maybe Sing or skinny would carry me on.
I'm skinny too!
Summer lasts about 9 months in Florida and their winter isn't a winter at all.
Aw, Sister! Clink to that!
Detroit winter stays around so long we all grow beards
SL1: I grew up in the ghettos of Syn, from the dark western suburbs to the glitzier ones to the east. I know live in the upper-class nothern-area, very white. I don't mind but I hope to move into a big house out in west-Syn. I can be a CEO of a company in a second, but the same can be said about trailer park life (nothing beats it) :)
Sing: IMYSWFM?
Eric: you are more than welcome :)
I have a friend who went to Australia for 3 weeks. His photos were varied and phenomenal. The cultural differences he saw in the different areas was amazing, from what I could tell.
It was all beautiful!
because its paradise, on a good day...
Cool, I'll curl up into the suitcase and Sing can tell the bag man to carry me! I's be po as heck up here in the ghetto of detroit's white northern slums
Lol...from the ghettos to paradise!
Clink!
It'll be a good day, day after day...
Leaving hell's best days behind
the worst days of paradise...
that would be something to remember
You guys have the benefit of me; I know the tourist trails that you wont find on any map. I know I could take you to the BlueGumForest and find your own piece of paradise. Paradise on a good day? For sure.
Wow, am I ever so glad *** brought us together.
You guys don't know about my photo-blog, do you?
Oh, my.
Left me give you a taste of what you will come to see and breath:
http://through-one-eye.blogspot.com/2007/06/three-sisters.html
Tell us about BlueGumForest...it sounds delicious, in a oompa-loompa way ;)
LOL
--
Sing, you still flowing in the river of red wine?
Hmmm...link didn't work.
Eric don't let that redwine river sweep her away!
I'll dive in and save her!
She's probably at your blog, Orhan
Please!
She's gone, and lost to me forever
Link didn't work, aw :(
Try clicking on this.
The Blue Gum Forest is not easy to get to, in fact I almost died a few times climbing through the Great Dividing to get to it but it was well worth it in the end.
As your love for American Oak trees run thick through your history we have a great love of gum trees; our koloas get drunk off it, and they actually explode during bush fires spreadin flammable oil over nearby fauna. This is why we have the greatest bushfires in the world.
You know that smoky mist that hovers on early mornings when you're camping? Well, the Blue Gum Forest has this feeling all the time. Nestled in the fear that a snake, spider or any other various creature could pop out and cosume you find a piece of heaven next to the river with the backdrop of the most beautiful, skinny, light greyish-blue trees.
I go for 'walk-abouts' from time to time. It maybe a kilometre/mile down the road or it might be the most dangerous and foolish venture possible, but the beauty of this island-home is that you know your place. Though plenty of blood has been spilt on her parch skin she is fair and welcoming, giving and always wonderous.
I found her, she's floating.
That sounds so like a true earth bound paradise: Beauty and danger, ready to explode.
This has been quite a learning experience.
floating in...
I'm drinking wine, I'm fine, I can't type....
peace
Then read our words, Sing.
I'll type you up my favorite Bukowski poem
Lol, floating in red wine.
Orhan that link works! I had no idea you also had a photo blog!
I've sneaked a peak & will look more in a bit...looks awesome!
Take your time :)
Yes, my sister never drinks anything but beer....but tonight she has been drinking red wine & she's not used to it.
Hope this isn't too obnoxious; it's my fav of all time, and my guiding force to write poems by:
Don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin;
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.
She's long ago
forgotten me
She'e tring on a new
hat
anf looks more the
coquette
than ever
She is a
child
and a mannequin
and
death
I can't hate
that
she didn't dp
anything
unusual
I only wanted her
to.
Lol, the spirits were strong on this party on the patio...
Wish I wasn't drunk, I'd of typed better!
I wish I wrote that
Orhan~ I'd love to go hiking out there! I have heard that you can see some pretty crazy things, as far as wildlife, bugs & stuff.
did you write that poem Eric?
Here I am a week into sobriety and I have to deal with you drunken fools :p
I love it.
(After smoking weed regularly for the past eight years I've grown bored of the level it has left me at.. so much more to see and achieve)
I demand more poetry!
(Btw, I hope you guys know I want you contributing an episode to A Matter of Opinion next season; season 2 will be written by the lovers and edited by the Orhan)
It's called "Trapped", from Love Is A Dog From Hell, by Charles Bukowski.
I could take you 10m from my building and amaze you with all that is unique to this island home.
I don't normally read/enjoy poetry but Singy wet my interest in it when I found her link through our darling SL1's blog.
Still not a huge fan, but certainly not going to say no.
The blog looks good, Orhan. I was there for a minute a little bit ago. The photos are fantastic. Your island Nation is well represented by you and your lense.
eric...funny, sister just got a book called 'love is a drug'...good poem.
Orhan~I hope you take the time to take advantage of your proximity every day. i love to walk around my area , but it is not exotic at all.
Skinny is how I met everyone here. She is the bomb. I was looking for poets when I stumbled in and complimented her on her writing and picture.
Then Gimmiepeace dropped by my blog, then I went to their blog, Singleton caught up to me, and boom. I'm a friend of the coolest hippies I've ever met.
and all hippies are cool, so they are trully something special, as well you know by now.
:)
everyone
clink!
The only purpose of that blog is to share the city of Syn with the damaged world around me. I'm no great photographer, I just feel the thousand words my pictures have may distract someone long enough to put the gun down and smile. There is beauty worth fighting for, sure. But there is certainly beauty worth living for.
Where did Singy go?
Hippies, ftw :)
Clink Eric!
Lol, I was sitting here trying to recall how I ended up where & I figure that I don't rightly know...
She's reading us. She's floating in redwine river and can't type, but her spirit watches us over her shoulder. I bet she liked the poem. I'll send her a copy of the book. I'll trade it for a smile and a beercap
clink, skinny
clink, orhan
clink, Singleton
Singy went to bed or perhaps she's still watching, but I think she's asleep....wine! red wine!
That's a really good idea Orhan.
Throw the good, beautiful & powerful stuff out there and see what boomerangs back.
Aw :(
Clink, ha. Love it.
Next time we all get together we're giving Singy a bottle of beer and leaving the wine for me ;)
I had know idea singleton slept before midnight.
Hmmm...Orhan has all these reasons or purposes behind his blog, as does Eric & really, so does Singy... lol, mine's really just for fun.
Right. Sing needs to be here!
Yea Orhan ... you can have the red wine... and the tequilla!
your's is a creative outlet, never forget that.
;) ramblings...
Win, win.
SL1: Your blog brought us all together. I found you via the random-next-blog button and haven't looked back since. You keep us together; you could say you fuel our purpose :)
I was readin death of retail price while me and sing were chatting at the back porch.
sometimes a sounding board, a vent
they've all led me to some great people all over. I couldn't begin to name them.
I'll put you on the links. I liked the eastern based news aspect of it.
We are the champions, my familia.
SLB and Singleton are already there!
Thank you muchly, Eric.
I'll dip into your blog a little later, just multi-tasking a few too many things right now :|
Lol, Both of you have some kick ass blogs.
Orhan
I'm the same way. A lot on the plate makes a full life.
Skinny
So do you and your familly. You are creative dynamos.
A lot on my plate and still I stack it higher...
Eric, some of your poetry is the most beautiful stuff we (speaking for Sing & myself, as I feel I can because we discussed this)have ever heard.
Orhan, I can remember finding you way back when and getting lost i your blog. hahhahaa. Surely you thought me crazy! I get my current events and cultural points to ponder via your blog. Now I have also seen the power of your creative writing. Amazing.
Oh...and then you throw out a photo blog tonight! Lol, how many blogs do you have?!
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