Sartorial Splendor

 We were watching an old British drama the other night: Witness for the Prosecution. This movie was so old it was in black and white. There were a few interesting plot twists but I was intrigued with the decorous courtroom scenes and, more closely, the sartorial splendor of the various judiciary: the horsehair wigs, the long black robes, the white collars; even more intriguing, I realized those same honorable outfits are still worn in English courts today. 

In the film Charles Laughton played a very principled English barrister and very much looked the part in his wig and robe. For those unfamiliar with the British courts, a barrister is a specialist in advocacy and typically represents clients in court. In other words, he can stand in front of the bar and plead his client’s case, while the solicitor is the equivalent of a paralegal. Typically, the solicitor handles the majority of the behind the scenes legal work, the research, the document preparation, etc., everything needed to make the barrister look good.

The movie harkened me back to a moment in time, many many years ago. I was toddling down Chancery Lane, one of London’s finer streets, wearing my best ‘mod’ poor boy tee shirt, macrame belt, with contrasting leggings and sandals, when I noticed a display window filled with various styles of horsehair wigs and black robes. “I say!” I said to myself, what is the import of this shop; costumes for Halloween, or props for movies or the theatre? The name on the door said Ede and Ravenscroft. Being the curious Dolly Bird that I was then, I entered the shop, looked about and tried to make sense of any of it. A well tailored gentleman, whose demeanor suggested him to be the proprietor, asked my business. My business? He bore a remarkable resemblance to Patrick Macnee which made me wonder if he was Patrick Macnee, there to pick up a costume for some film. “I beg your pardon?” I retorted causticly. I fairly dripped with condescension. During my travels, I had learned how to be more portentous than the haughtiest of snobs. He looked me over; I was clearly a long haired hippy, but still kinda cute in my hot pants. He reassessed, then finally retreated with “how may I help you”. 

I deduced that he was the shopkeeper, not the shop owner, while he deduced that I was an adorable, but penniless, waif. Clearly, a detente was in order. After all, there were no customers in the shop, and no prospects due to the inclement weather, so we proceeded to while away the afternoon with idle chatter. I explained my world tour expedition and, in return, he gave me a long and entertaining history of the exalted wig and robe establishment in which we stood, while pouring tea for me at the back of the shop. (As an aside, wouldn’t The Wig and Robe be a great name for a pub?) Anyway, it was raining, the hot tea and crisp biscuits were from Twinings, and the afternoon went by pleasantly enough with my asking only a nominal number of stupid questions. 

He explained that the original idea in jurisprudence, back in the 1700s, was that the wearing of wigs and black gowns as the uniformity of dress, would make the administration of justice impersonal, together with the elimination of personal bias and, at the same time, emphasize the formal gravity and dignity of justice. It did not matter whether, under the robe, the suit was tailored from Savile Row or purchased from Suit Supply London; everyone looked alike so the focus became the legal issue at hand, not sartorial splendor, as the means of determining guilt or innocence. A most noble principle with which I heartily agreed.

In England, he went on, wigs came and went, sometimes from completely different directions. Wigs were first associated either with vanity over hair loss, or the histrionics of the stage, or newfangled female fashions. Queen Elizabeth I wore a red wig to cover her thinning grey hair. Ironically, the wigs caused the hair to thin, which meant more wigs were required and of course those wigs were hugely expensive and elaborate. QE1 had more than 80 wigs. Since I own more than 80 pairs of shoes, I would not throw any stones in her direction, but it’s curious how one style often morphs into something else, like tattoos on grizzled sailors which have now become mainstream among the general public while at one time they were the outward sign of a life lived on the far edge of society. Such was the case with wigs.

Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, at one time was at the wrong end of the War of the Roses, but was later reinstated, then wrote the most influential treatise on English law. He wore his tunic, as it was called then, with an elaborate belt and fur trim at the hem. Previously, the robes would change colors depending on the stature of the barrister but after a time the only acceptable color was black to illustrate the gravity commensurate with the Noble Robe. Even now, in England the Noble Robe continues to include black silk stockings and black patent leather shoes but is no longer the heavy material that was mandatory then. Currently, the textiles change in weight according to the weather; lighter fabric in summer and warmer in winter. 

In the US, oddly enough, the founding fathers ditched the wigs for court, although a number of them wore wigs around town for vanity’s sake. Remarkably, George Washington didn’t wear a wig but had reddish brown hair which he powdered so that it looked like a wig. 

And, for the most part, the US fathers scrapped the tradition of black robes for jurists. The rationale for ridding the robes was to differentiate the lawyers from the judge, which was a huge error in judgment (pardon the pun), because it also eliminated the allusion of neutrality. Today, in movies, we only know the good guy’s lawyer from the bad guy’s lawyer by the cut of the suit. The good guy’s lawyer is portrayed as earnest, committed, usually a low paid solo practitioner, standing in front of the juror box wearing a suit purchased off the rack or even second hand (as any John Grisham novel will enlighten you), coupled with a frayed dress shirt and a sad rep tie, while the bad guy’s lawyer arrives with an entourage of bag carriers, wearing a custom Armani suit, well polished Italian leather shoes, a silk tie, a monogrammed shirt and fairly oozing with the scent of an expensive French after shave. How would the jurors react? How could the jurors react? How impressive. So much for the concept that justice is blind. Clothes make the man. Forget truth, justice and the American way. Of course Mr. Armani would win the case. He was rich and successful; anyone could see that, so he must be the better lawyer. Therein lay the detriment to the common man.

Today, in the US, only justices and judges wear the black robes, while in Canada, justices and lawyers both wear the robes, but only at the federal and supreme court levels. This loss of formal decorum for jurists is a complete mystery since the original point of the wig and robe was to forge legal neutrality and to eliminate juror bias. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who famously gave us the ‘clear and present danger’ doctrine, also wrote a book about The Common Law and would be among the first to agree that the disappearance of the court’s ‘wig and robe’ tradition was a sign of lack of respect for the common man, as evidenced by My Cousin Vinny and Legally Blonde.

Summers Then; Of Long Ago

 Much has been said about the current generations living with their faces in front of their electronic screens, seldom venturing outdoors, taking only the classes they wish to take; the easy ones, of course. Apparently, life is more stressful for them these days; more scary, depressing, solitary, fragmented. I don’t believe it but my opinion is of no import. I would suggest they go for a walk outdoors, enjoy the sunshine. They’ll feel better and look better. I’m sure that probably doesn’t happen very often these days; at least that’s what I’m told by harried parents who can’t get their kids off the couch; joys missed. Then again, they will never miss what they never had.

This is a story of summer events that all happened in the ‘olden days’, before any kind of social media existed; laptops, texts, emails, cell phones or memes, DMs, IA, etc. Today, I can write in cursive, read a clock with hands and do math without a calculator. In the ‘olden days’, mandatory classes included geography, history, civics, science, literature and composition in school, so I know the location of Madagascar, when the Gutenberg press became active, the difference between a Whig and a Tory, what happens when vinegar and baking soda are mixed. I can quote from Shakespeare and I can parse a sentence, but I digress. 

Recently, I was inspired by a flock of cartoons about“Moms Then”, that went like this:

“Say that again and I will wash your mouth out with soap.”

“You’ll eat what I make or else; children are starving in China.”

“You better stop crying or I’ll really give you something to cry about.”

I can say with unreserved certainty that everyone my age has been threatened with any one, or all, of those remarks, usually snarled by a very frustrated mother. Those same edicts took place as far back as seventy years ago. Life was different in the ‘olden days’. Then, we were told to leave the house after breakfast and to not return until suppertime, with which we happily agreed. There was nothing to do in the house anyway, except listen to the radio and that was boring. Television was in its infancy. And as far as we were concerned, TV was only good on Saturday mornings and only certain radio programs were good after school. 

Upon leaving the house, my brothers would go their way with their cooties encrusted friends, teaching each other how to armpit burp or something equally disgusting. I would grab my metal roller skates, the ones with genuine leather straps and a key to adjust to the wearer’s shoes, then head next door to play with Carol. Summer time friends were different from school friends. School friendships survived from September to June, but those two month summertime friendships were the most fun, since there was so much more trouble to be gotten into with them. Sometimes we would even skate around the entire city block, ignoring less than pleasant neighbors’ remarks about rapscallion children. 

After supper, boys could go out again until the street lights came on. Girls, not so much. We had to stay inside the house or be cocooned at other girlfriends’ homes in the city. Apparently city life at dusk was more dangerous than daytime city life, which was another reason we loved spending our summers in the country.

When we were shipped off to various relatives’ homes during those long ago summers we enjoyed the company of equally intrepid cousins with whom to blow up rural mailboxes, terrorize chickens and share long bike rides along seldom used country roads. Our cousins lived in neighboring homes, just like our grandparents’ home. Summers then were about scraped knees, dirty feet and fingernails and tiny animals forgotten in pockets until an adult found them again on wash day, much to our relief and much to the adult’s chagrin. And the ‘lake’, perhaps not quite big enough to be called a lake, per se, but big enough for us to swim and carouse in and how did we not get maimed or killed during those long days with absolutely no adult supervision. 

We were “brown as berries”, my grandmother would say. In those days, there was no thought of sunscreen, no hats, no water bottles, no shoes, just Frank Capra childhoods; ordinary kids living magnificent lives in comfortably scruffy shorts and tee shirts, roaming around the countryside, braving the rural wilderness in familial packs, “like little homeless wolves” my grandfather would grunt. But we played hide and seek, climbed trees, made curious discoveries in dusty barns, observed ant colonies, chased fireflies, took naps in hammocks and now ’n’ then, when it was very hot, were allowed to sleep on blankets, under the stars, next to our grandparents’ open bedroom window. I shudder to think what Child Services would say today.

The occasional trips to the beach brought out freckles, dark tan lines, burnt bare feet on hot sand, and droopy sandwiches. We were bribed with ‘if you’re good’, which meant ‘if we didn’t drown each other’, then afterwards we would be taken to the local ice cream parlor for a banana split, which was the most wonderful treat on earth. Who could ask for anything more: three flavors of ice cream, matching syrups on each scoop, a whole banana with lots of whipped cream, nuts and a bright red cherry. What other spectacle on earth could match this colorful marvel. The stomach ache that came later was worth every spoonful of deliciousness. 

While the sun was out we caroused with our nearby cousins. It was only when dad, or some other grownup, whistled for dinner did we remember about food and that we had best find our way home ‘or else’. Or else! Parents were in charge then. Of course, we had to be thoroughly washed up before we sat down at the dinner table. One of my mother’s favorite pastimes, as we were being bathed, was to count the number of bruises that we proudly displayed on our legs. We knew how to live then. Dinner was a time to brag to the family about our hugely successful day. While the adults would mildly tsk tsk, chuckle or groan over our perilous misadventures, they sometimes nodded and related their own equally hair raising stories of their antics when they were our age, bringing howls of laughter and giving us ideas for future escapades. Today those same folk would undoubtedly be hauled into court for negligent child abuse. 

After dinner, on those hot summer evenings, the adults were happy to have us out of the house so that they could watch the Red Skelton Show or the Big Valley without interruption or explanation. There was no AC in those days. We kids would bicycle down the back road to each other’s homes and could hear what everyone was watching through their open windows. Wagon Train was a big favorite, as were The Honeymooners and Perry Mason. 

The rare summer days of thunder and lightening storms were another form of paradise. Whenever grownups clucked at us about staying away from windows we would hide behind the long drapes and count the time after the lightening, then wait and watch while the grey skies turned wild. Sometimes, the ensuing thunder could rattle the whole house. Women would yelp and lights would flicker. The thrill was almost unbearable. During ordinary rainy days and evenings, we played checkers and Battleship in the screened porch; cool breezes kept our tempers down. Oftentimes, our patience would run out before a slow game of scrabble ended but when a few more cousins arrived, a game of monopoly kept us enthralled way after bedtime. We were vicious oligarchs when it came to real estate.

And then, almost without our noticing, the years went by, our hormones kicked in and our summer lives changed. Our grandparents had grown older, less resilient to the cacophony of teenagers. Summers in the city were their own form of enchantment. Roller skates were replaced with car wheels and grubby shorts were replaced with pretty shoes and dresses. School friends, again, were replaced by our summer friends. My summer friends were the neighborhood girls who went to different schools but we reconnected each summer, trying not to notice who had developed bumps and curves during the past school year. Roller skating trips around city blocks were replaced with walking trips through the park for ice cream at the local Dairy Queen, all the while feigning lack of interest in local boys even though summer Sunday evenings were spent at the nearby CYO, hoping for dances with those same boys. We walked everywhere in those days, saying hello to neighbors sitting on their front porches, collecting girlfriends as we strolled to the church hall while gossiping about boys and clothes and the temerity of one local girl who wore an obvious amount of makeup. Of course she would come to a bad end or she would become CEO of a giant conglomerate; it could go either way. Those summers, too, were important because we were learning from each other that yet another world was waiting for us a few short years away and, like all teenagers on the threshold of adulthood, we were impatient for our future lives to begin, already having forgotten the rich childhoods that we had left behind, the childhoods that had helped make us who we would become.

Years later still, all grown up now, my brother learned from one of our rural cousins that those now ancient farm houses were to be torn down, replaced with modern homes that included indoor plumbing, so he thought we ought to take a last look; say a quiet farewell to the places that had shaped us so long ago; that held the memories of our summer years of childhood joys and tears. Off we went, in his new ‘jalopy’ to revisit our past. The trip was filled with hilarious ‘remember the time. . . .’ stories. When we finally arrived, tired with laughter, we were surprised to see that the empty houses were considerably smaller than we remembered; our much loved grandparents’ screen porch had drifted, somewhat slightly, away from the main house, the chicken coop was long gone as was the barn. We quieted, each absorbed in our own reminiscences. I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed because the house wasn’t as big and magical as I had remembered or if real life had derailed my idyllic childhood memories. Happiness took a different form then. It was a time of fewer responsibilities and greater freedoms. We silently said our goodbyes, grateful for the childhoods we had shared and headed back to our electronic filled big city work and play routines. Thomas Wolfe was right: you can’t go home again but, oh, what lives we lived.