Wrap It Up!

Following a tradition that began shortly after the Pilgrims landed, we took Mom and some of her posse to a place called the Peppermill for New Year's Eve. Last year, to tell you the truth, we did not make it there, because Mom was just out of the hospital, but this year, we were back in there with the old gang.

Now, I say old, and I mean superannuated. There must be one of these restaurants in every town, where the blue-blooded and blue-haired meet to eat. The food is excellent, service mostly so, and the staff try to live up the name of the joint by having a busboy trailing around with a peppermill to grind on everyone's salad, filet mignon and seafood platter. The peppermill is so big, it sort of appears that he is carrying a fire extinguisher around in case someone nods off into their Chicken Baltimore and their tie catches fire.

(Of course, I never fail to quote Frank Whaley's line to Jennifer Connolly from "Career Opportunities"..."Would you like some fresh-ground pepper? I find it really brings out the natural taste of the chicken..." Peggy always replies that she is sooo glad not to be married to Frank Whaley, so please stop impersonating him.)

But ties! It got really cold here yesterday, when the wind picked up to a slight 60-mph zephyr, and so I figured I could get away with wearing a crew-neck sweater over a shirt and under a sports jacket. For extra holiday flair, I added a pair of pants. But I was amazed to get there and find that I was not the only guy not wearing a tie! As little as two years ago, the last time we were there for NYE, every man in the place wore a tie, and now here they were, rocking the open-neck look, the collarless-shirt-buttoned-with-a-diamond-stud-look (the caucasian version of Bernie Mac?) and the always-popular v-neck, crew-neck and turtle-neck sweater thing. Literally, less than half of the males shoving dinner down their necks had to force that prime rib past the larynx-constricting four-in-hand!

I say, hurray for us. I rarely wear a tie to work anymore unless some really important meeting, celebration or rite is taking place, opting for the increasingly-popular polo shirt in summer and the rakish open-necked dress shirt at other times. Back in the day, we wore ties all the damn time, even to ball games, for whatever reason. And they were ties back then! Either rep-striped ties, or club ties with little figures (I had one where the little figures were of a statue taking a whizz - it turns out that the statue honored some prince of Belgium or something who was lost and was watering the forest when the king's men found him, and when the statue was built, they had it look just as he did when he was found. I wonder if it really looked like his young majesty.)

But those cool ties gave way to the 90's trend of ties that looked like, in the words of Bob Greene, dog vomit, and maybe that's why people aren't wearing them any more so much. I'm just glad that American males are seeing a long-deserved victory in the battle for neck freedom!