It's Time for Some Bibs

Across the Fence #301

It’s that time of year when summer is coming to an end and the stores are filled with back to school shoppers. It wasn’t my favorite time of year when I was young. It meant summer vacation was over, it was time to harvest tobacco, and school would soon be starting. Although, when you lived on a farm, going back to school was a vacation after a summer of working in the fields.

It also meant a new pair of bib overalls for that first day of school. They were our standard dress until I got old enough to want “real” pants like many other kids wore. I wore a lot of hand-me-down bibs and clothes, thanks to the Thompsons, who were our neighbors. Joel was a year older than me, so I got his clothes when he outgrew them. He probably got them from his brother, and if they had any thread left, my brother, David, probably wore them after I outgrew them. That was the way of life back then and we never thought twice about wearing hand-me-down clothes. New clothes, for the first day of school were the exception.

The problem with new, stiff, bib overalls is that they made a rustling noise when you walked. They weren’t like good, old, worn bibs that had the stiffness all worked out of them. At least most of us country boys were in the same boat. We must have made quite a “swish, swish, swish” sound as we walked together.

Bibs were pretty cool too. You had lots of pockets to put things in and they usually had a loop on one leg where you could slip the handle of a hammer through or some other tool. If that La Crosse lady who tried to hold up a store had worn bibs, her hammer wouldn’t have gotten stuck in her pocket. Maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t. That’s one more thing the national news media could have made fun of. It was bad enough that they stuck a cheese head on her photo when they reported the story. The reporter mentioned that he grew up in Wisconsin, then rolled his eyes and shook his head as he reported the story. “Those are my people.”

There was a time when almost every farmer you saw had bib overalls. Now they are few and far between. That’s too bad because they’re very useful. I’ve been thinking of getting a pair to use when I’m working around the yard or garden. Think of all the pockets I’d have to put things in and loops to hang stuff from. They’re also very comfortable.

Whenever I think of bib overalls, I think of my cousin, Sandy. She spent every summer with us until she got into high school and had a summer job. I missed having her around for those three months and always looked forward to her coming to visit. She was like my big sister, instead of a cousin.

One summer, after she was old enough to drive, she and her friend, Lorna, drove up to the farm from Illinois to spend a week with us. On the way they had stopped in Viroqua and bought bib overalls at Felix’s Clothing Store. They arrived at the farm wearing their new bibs and thought they were pretty cool. This was after I had given up wearing bibs and was wearing “real” jeans with a belt, not bibs and suspenders. I guess I thought at the time that bibs were too country for me.

After Sandy and Lorna arrived, they proceeded to cut the legs off their new bibs to make shorts. Then they cut strips in the bottom of the cut-off legs to make a fringe. They thought they were the height of fashion. I thought it was rather humorous… until the evening we were going to a 4-H square dance being held in Westby. It was for all 4-H clubs in Vernon County. Sandy and Lorna thought the perfect outfits to wear to the square dance were their cut-off, fringy, bib overalls. I was semi-horrified.

I was probably in eighth grade and had crushes on several girls who belonged to 4-H clubs around Viroqua, but never had the courage to ask any of them to be my square dance partner. That night I arrived at the dance accompanied by two, pretty “older girls” dressed in cut-off, fringy, bib overalls. Needless to say, I didn’t ask any girls to dance that night either. At least Sandy and Lorna were my partners.

Years later, Sandy and I were talking, when she brought up the night they went square dancing with me. She said, “I’m so sorry. We never realized at the time that you were probably embarrassed to death when we dressed like that.” She wanted me to know they weren’t a couple of big city girls making fun of country folks. As young teenagers they thought it was cute, and a little sexy, like Daisy Mae in the Li’l Abner comic strip.

I told Sandy it was OK. I knew she was a country girl at heart, having grown up on the farm with us. I knew she’d never make fun of us.

I think it’s time for me to buy some bibs in memory of Sandy! I think she’d like that. But, I refuse to cut them off and make fringy bottoms.