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Cool Has a Cost

David Gartland

I’M SITTING ON MY patio drinking coffee, as I do every morning before my wife and son wake up. I go to bed early and wake up before sunrise, so when I’m drinking my coffee, it’s still dark. This is a great time for me to think.

This morning, I’ve been thinking about Jordache jeans. For those of you too young to remember, Jordache jeans were the thing to own in the late 1970s and early 1980s if you were a teenager or in your 20s. They were tight fitting and expensive compared to other jeans, and they had Jordache printed in large letters on the back pocket, so you couldn’t help but know what jeans somebody was wearing. There have been other jeans since, but I don’t believe the impact of owning these particular jeans has ever been duplicated. It was magical. All you had to do was own these jeans and you were one of the cool kids.

I was introduced to the phrase “cool kids” by a woman I worked with. I think it describes perfectly those people in our lives we either wanted to hang out with or wanted to be.

I’d venture to say everybody in the world has known or currently knows their own version of cool kids. These folks are all different, but in our eyes they’re cool. I don’t think it matters how much money they have or how good looking they are, they just have that thing we want. It could be the popular jeans, the car we’ve always wanted, that house we admired growing up or the number of goats they own, assuming that’s the measure of wealth where you come from.

There will always be something we desire. We might buy it, it might remain on our “must have” list forever or we might move on to something new. Whatever the case, we feel we must have this particular item to feel good—and I think that’s fine, as long as our desire doesn’t end up doing severe financial damage.

When you’re a kid and the status symbol you want can be bought by your parents, that’s a good deal financially because you’re using OPM—other people’s money—to satisfy your desire. But once you’re off the parental payroll and have to spend your own money, pursuing status symbols can get you in trouble. These status symbols don’t get cheaper as we get older. In fact, they tend to get ever more expensive.

I grew up on Long Island, New York. There’s a section of Long Island where the cool kids live. It’s called the Hamptons. This is a group of towns that are on Long Island’s South Fork, at the far end of the island. The most famous of these towns is Southampton. It’s not a gated community. You can drive through the town, but you probably won’t be able to drive up to any of the houses, because those do have gates.

But the non-Hamptons town I’d put on my personal bucket list is Sag Harbor. It’s an old whaling town that became an artists’ community. But it’s no longer a struggling artists’ community, but rather a rich artists’ community. People like the late Jimmy Buffett, of Margaritaville fame, have lived in Sag Harbor.

I first heard of Sag Harbor when I read John Steinbeck’s book Travels with Charley, which tells the tale of Steinbeck buying a new GMC pickup truck, along with a camper body to sit on the truck’s cargo bay, and then packing up and taking his poodle Charley on a cross-country road trip. Reading about this adventure made me want to travel across America, which I first did the summer before my college junior year and then again when I traversed the country on Lincoln Highway. Lincoln Highway is the road conceived in 1912 and which went from Times Square, New York City, to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.

For me, the interesting thing about Travels with Charley was that Steinbeck started in Sag Harbor. Why would he want to live on Long Island? Steinbeck was born and raised in California. Being a kid who was born and raised on Long Island, I always thought the cool kids lived somewhere else—like the Beach Boys did.

I first became aware of the Beach Boys thanks to a friend of my brother, who came to our house in 1963 with a new 45 RPM record of a song called Shut Down. From then on, the Beach Boys became my ultimate cool kids. California must be the place to live, I thought, since that’s where they lived. Apparently, all the good-looking girls lived there, everyone surfs and they have year-round tans. What could be better?

Years later, I traveled to where the Beach Boys’ Wilson brothers were raised, only to find out they grew up in a Long Island-style Levittown-type house far away from the ocean. They sang of surfing, hot rods and the party lifestyle—but what they sang about wasn’t how they lived. I was crushed.

Advertising and marketing can convince us that the thing that others are selling is what we need. Sometimes, it is. But not always.

David Gartland was born and raised on Long Island, New York, and has lived in central New Jersey since 1987. He earned a bachelor’s degree in math from the State University of New York at Cortland and holds various professional insurance designations. Dave’s property and casualty insurance career with different companies lasted 42 years. He’s been married 36 years, and has a son with special needs. Dave has identified three areas of interest that he focuses on to enjoy retirement: exploring, learning and accomplishing. Pursuing any one of these leads to contentment. Check out Dave’s earlier articles.

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Rich
7 months ago

Wow, what a blast from the past! Spent a lot of time on the left coast but never a Beach Boys fan. I did own a pair of Jordache jeans once though—the most I ever paid for jeans in my life. Now I only wear Lardache.

Tim Mueller
7 months ago

Back in the middle to late 1960’s, when I was in Junor High School, the shirt to wear was a 100% nylon Ban-Lon polo shirt. They had thick, soft fabric and a high quality, simmering look and nice fit. All the cool guys wore them. They cost a little more, but if you had one of those you moved up in life. Since I had my own large newspaper route, I was able to buy one. The only thing was, with no air conditioning in the schools, they were as hot as satan. But man, were they cool.

Last edited 7 months ago by Tim Mueller
Jack McHugh
7 months ago

“There will always be something we desire.”

Gee, I don’t know about that. I’m pretty much “done” accumulating stuff, and don’t have much of a wander-lust either. I may need one more car before “checkout-time,” but wouldn’t at all mind keeping the current Toyota if it can go the distance.

Years ago years I was collector of a certain category of items, and always had a “Grail-list” of specific items to acquire*. When I finally checked off the last one on the list, it was a lesson in the difference between “having” and “wanting.” “Having” is quite nice indeed, but “Wanting” carries a certain excitement and spice that’s hard to replace.

*When I was a kid and coin-collecting was a neighborhood fad for a while, the “grail” was a 1909 S VDB. If you don’t know what that is don’t worry about it, but the term probably brings a smile to more than a few here. 🙂

Last edited 7 months ago by Jack McHugh
David J. Kupstas
7 months ago

For me, it was Members Only jackets. EVERYONE had a Members Only jacket. I did not. Finally, when I was 22 or so, I was at Penney’s looking at jackets. I struggled with whether to buy my first ever Members Only or another kind. Both were tan. Both seemed like fine jackets. After much deliberation, I finally went with the other jacket. I said, if I wasn’t cool enough to have a Members Only back then, I’m not cool enough now. I still have that tan jacket 30+ years later and wore it to work today.

Kevin Lynch
7 months ago

Dave…for me it was Bass Weejun Loafers and matching Belts.

When I came back to the USA in 1965, from growing up in Germany as an Army Brat, I went to 10th grade at the high school in town where the rich kids went to public school. They all wore Bass Weejun Loafters with matching belts, and drove to school in their own cars. I walked to school.

At my 50th high school reunion it was interesting to see what had become of the Bass Weejun crowd. Suffice it to say, my desire to wear Bass Wejuns had passed long ago, and I was blessed in my lifetime with career success and enjoyed a degree of financial success. That was not the case however, for a large portion if the Bass Wejun crowd.

Enjoyed your article and the memories it stirred up.

JGarrett
7 months ago

I am in terrible shape right now!
You mean the Beach Boys did not grow up in Cali? They grew up in Levittown?! I can’t handle that. Next I’ll find out that Santa is not real!!

Jonathan Clements
Admin
7 months ago
Reply to  JGarrett

What Dave says in his article is that the Wilson brothers did indeed grow up in California, but not near the beach.

DrLefty
7 months ago

Sighhhhh. I grew up on the coast in California but have spent all of my adult life living inland. It’s at least a 90-min drive to the nearest beach from here. One can indeed live in California and not be a “beach boy” (or girl).

Linda Grady
7 months ago

I agree with Mike’s comment 😊. I really got a chuckle, remembering Jordache jeans. I grew up in Queens and lived there much of my life. I was thrilled once when my husband’s wealthy former employer invited us and our two small children for a weekend at her home in the Hamptons. She lived in Hampton Bays, not as exclusive as Southampton, but still … Thanks for the memories, Dave.

DrLefty
7 months ago
Reply to  Linda Grady

When my oldest was in preschool, she became friends with another little girl whose parents were very wealthy. The family had a vacation home right on Lake Tahoe, and the parents invited us and a couple of other preschool families to spend a long weekend there over the 4th of July. I’ll never forget sitting out on the lawn before dinner overlooking the lake while the staff brought cocktails and nibbles.

Mike Gaynes
7 months ago

David, whatever coffee you drink to trigger these delightful mental meanderings, I want some.

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