Food, Glorious Food

In the midst of an episode of his hypos sometimes he would take himself out for a walk, not to saunter which is free and undirected but to search for himself. On one such recent walk an event from the early 1970s rose as a result of an itch. Maybe it was the weather that had begun to winter and he had pulled his coat tightly about him, but as he walked he recalled having purchased a pea coat at Canal Jeans on lower Broadway in the area called SoHo, a New York City acronym for south of Houston. That east/ west cross street is not to be pronounced Hewston, as in the Texan city, but articulated as Howston. The Texas city was named after Sam Houston, a general and statesman, but the New York City Street was named after William Houstoun, who, according to Wikipedia, served as a delegate from Georgia to the Continental Congress from 1784-1786 and then to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.  Houston married Mary Bayard in 1788 and Mary’s father, Nicholas, named the street after his new son-in-law. As his mother might have said, “I should be so lucky!” 
           In the early 1970s SoHo was crowded with factories that catered to the clothing trade; it was also an area that entertained a somewhat vibrant countercultural vibe, though perhaps that word didn’t belong on any airwave then. There were inexpensive rat-infested lofts occupied by hungry artists and writers: he aspired to be one of the latter but alas, he always he got hungry. He longed to enter the bohemian artist life, but he had neither the courage nor the skill. Instead, he worked rather dejectedly in one of the many clothing manufacturing factories in the area and looked with envy at the fogged windows in which he imagined the creative folks lived and worked. The factory floor on which he worked stretched through an entire block from Broadway west to Mercer Street. The ten rows of sewing machines at which sat mostly underpaid women of color filled the front half of the factory floor; towards the rear of the floor were the steam presses, the hanging racks, and the packing boxes and for finishing the manufactured clothes and preparing them for delivery. An extensive side room that ran about half of the size of the manufacturing floor was used for rolling out large bolsters of cloth that would be cut into patterned shapes. To him it was a dreary, odious place where the work was mind-numbing and for minimum wages. Sometimes he joined them in the deadening activities preparing products they would never be able to afford.
           It was the early 1970s and for his lunch break everyday he would put on his winter jacket, ride down what he imagined was the slowest elevator in the world and exited onto a somewhat lively Broadway where others, too, were either moving between work spaces or seeking a quick bite to eat. Usually, two slices of pizza and a soda would have satisfied him but that day he was suffering his hypos, and he chose to saunter and he set out to the north. He walked up two blocks and turned off Broadway onto Prince Street and walked west one block to Wooster where he came upon an artist run hippie restaurant simply named FOOD. He had not known this place had existed; inside he saw people whom he wanted to look like, and without hesitation he opened the door and joined with the quiet crowd. He ordered a bowl of soup that were sizzling in huge steel pots; along with the soup was included two thick slices of anadama bread and three slabs of butter. He had not before heard of this type of bread nor had he ever tasted anything so delicious. In his home Wonder Bread existed as the only baked dough. Despite the crowded floor he found a seat and in calm and comfort enjoyed this respite from the work, dirt and noise of the factory companioned here by artists and hippies who, too, had found a respite from the mundane and maybe from their hypos.  

          After lunch he headed back towards the shop floor. But first, with the time yet remaining . . . Across the street from his building’s entrance was a large clothing emporium, Canal Jeans, an establishment on the east side of Broadway about two or four blocks south of Houston Street and four or so blocks north of Canal Street. Canal Jeans was a cavernous space filled as he remembered with rough-hewn, large wooden tables piled high with jeans and shirts. Along the walls were wooden shelves into which shirts and other apparels were stacked. These were not the stuff that would be found at Macy’s or smaller and fashionable clothing stores. Here on the floor and lining the walls were the outfits fit for the hip hippie set. To prolong the satisfaction he had enjoyed at dining at FOOD, he walked into the store. On the display tables he saw pairs of painter jeans in a variety of bold colors: sun-yellow, sky blue, summer green, sunrise orange. He recognized this fare as statement jeans, and he imagined what they might be saying, what he might be saying and to whom he might be speaking. He picked up two pair. Then, looking about on the rough, unfinished walls of Canal Jeans were hung outerwear,—overcoats, jackets and vest—some that had even been previously worn. The idea of second-hand clothes was certainly not something of which his mother would approve but to which he was for some reason attracted. He remembered that once at college he had exchanged with a friend a perfectly fine sweater that had been purchased recently as a gift for a different one that sported a prominent tear in the elbow and which he the wore proudly.  
            On those crowded walls was where he found the pea coat hanging and to which he was instantly attracted. It was not a traditional Navy-issued garment, though it looked like one. Down Broadway and on Canal Street an Army-Navy store did business, but it was the Vietnam War era and he would not enter a military-establishment. His hypos pulled him to the pea coat hanging; he took it off the wall and put it on. When he had entered the establishment, he didn’t even know that he was looking for an item such as this or even that he had need of one. He recognized in the mirror who he thought he was or perhaps the image was who he wanted to be. Without another thought he purchased the coat and for several years he wore that coat—until one day he didn’t. At some point that he no longer remembered he lost contact with that garment, and with that loss he lost some version of himself. But now on this walk in the present, fifty-five years later wearing a more contemporary and even fashionable winter garment he came to appreciate that in his life since he had been looking about for that coat. And perhaps reaching for that man who had worn that garment.
            Thoreau had cautioned him to beware the enterprise that required new clothes and not a new man to wear those clothes. The man knew that clothes do not make the man, but perhaps it is that clothes may fit the man. Clothes existed that were the external expression of the self, and he thought that perhaps many spend their lives seeking out those garments. Yes, he knew that the self develops and changes, and it must continue to dress itself into the world. He considered that when shopping there seemed to be at least two options: to purchase the clothes that when worn will impress the world with the image, or conversely to acquire the garments that when worn expressed the self. Alas, though he had purchased a great many outer covers, on this walk he reflected that in his shopping for clothes he had rarely found that iteration of the pea coat—or eaten his lunches at establishments such as FOOD.