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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I have never been questioned by a model driving an exotic car, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a story about jeans, collusion, and image.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
“Are those Bugle Boy Jeans that you’re wearing?” That question was part of a very popular commercial campaign launched by the Bugle Boy jean company in the late 80’s. The commercial featured a young attractive man standing by the side of the road looking for a ride. A moment later an attractive female model diving an exoctic sports car drives past him and slams on the brakes. She puts the car in reverse and approaches him. She says, “Excuse me, are those Bugle Boy jeans that you’re wearing?” He replies, “Yes, they are Bugle Boy jeans.” She then tells him thank you, and drives off.
I don’t know how much of their success had to do with those commercials, but Bugle Boy jeans were the jeans that everyone wanted to be seen wearing. My brothers and I were no exception. Even though we lived in a small rural town, the Bugle Boy fad had reached our borders and all the cool kids were wearing Bugle Boy jeans.
I wasn’t one of the cool kids. My step-brother was. He was athletic, charming, good looking, smart, and liked to party. He was always at the center of attention. Oh, he had a last name that was very popular in that town. My brother was also athletic. He was average looking, made decent grades, and didn’t mind partying. I wouldn’t say he was popular, but he was definitely not one of the nerds, or outcasts.
I was pretty dorky looking, not athletic, made good grades, and didn’t like to party. Like I said, I wasn’t one of the cool kids. I wanted to be, but I didn’t fit in. I think that I thought if I could LOOK like one of them then I might actually be accepted by them. I needed a pair of Bugle Boy jeans.
Winter break came around and my brothers and I had some time on our hands. One day we decided that each of us would choose one of our gifts from under the Christmas tree and open it. We would be very careful, sneek open the box, take a peek inside, and then seal it back up. Our parents would never even know. Since we were all in it together, there was no risk at one of us ratting out one of the others. It was collusion at its finest!
I picked a box that was a couple of inches thick, about 10 inches wide, and about 15 inches long. I carefully sliced open the tape and slid the box from the wrapper. I popped the box open and did the dance of joy. Inside that box was my future, my pathway to coolness. Inside that box was a pair of Bugle Boy jeans. In fact, all three of us got Bugle Boy jeans for Christmas that year.
Those jeans soon became my favorite clothing item and I wore them nearly every day. Guess what happened when I showed up to school in a pair of Bugle Boy jeans…I was suddenly no more popular than I was when I wore my Levi 501s. I didn’t get asked out by the cute girls. I didn’t get asked to join the basketball team. I didn’t stop getting made fun of by the jerks in my class.
Here’s what I learned.
The clothes don’t make the man. The gadget doesn’t make the man. The house doesn’t make the man. The car doesn’t make the man. It’s quite simple really. As much as marketing companies would like us to think otherwise, the value of a human can not be measured by things manufactured in China, Germany, Italy, or any other spot on this planet.
About 5 years ago I had my 15 year high school reunion. I was looking forward to seeing a few of the people I spent my school days with. However, there were 3 people that I was hoping wouldn’t show up. I had no desire to ever interact with them again. As luck would have it, two of them showed up and I ended up sitting right next to one of them at dinner.
I’m glad I sat next to him. This man who mocked me and belittled me in high school was a different person. He was still good looking. He was still well dressed. He still had a pretty girl next to him. What had changed was the way he treated people; the way he treated me. He was respectful and caring. He was no longer a jerk, he was actually very nice. I enjoyed our conversation.
On the other hand, the other guy seemed to have not changed at all. He sat on the far end of the table from me so I had no interaction with him at dinner. However, after dinner several of them had decided to go bowling. However, my wife and I were not able to join them. While everyone else seemed to understand that we wouldn’t join them, this one person did not. He mocked me and called me names. He said I was still the wimp I was in high school.
I have no idea what brand of jeans he was wearing that night, but it wouldn’t have mattered. No brand of anything would have made him more or less of a man than he was that night. No, his words painted the true picture of his soul and it was not a pretty picture.
Now I’m a parent and my kids are getting closer to those awful years where kids start noticing things that don’t matter and start categorizing people by things that should have no bearing on such matters.
I was foolish to think that wearing a certain brand of clothing would suddenly make me a better person. However, I was even more foolish to yearn for the approval of people who would only like me based on a label on a pair of jeans.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that one day his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. As children I suppose it’s somewhat understandable that we would be foolish and naive enough to think that people can be judged by such things as brand names, surnames, skin color, or street address but these types of judgements have no place or merit in the mind of adults.
I know it can be hard to look past stereotypes, initial impressions, and biases but we do ourselves a disservice when we judge people by those strawmen standards. More importantly, we do those we’ve judged a disservice. When we look at others through the lens of love, we make ourselves and the world around us a better place.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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