The Pleasures of Thrifting for Menswear. . .

Heinz-Ulrich the Mannequin. This exaggerated, Frankenstein's monster-like pose shows how things fit after some minor alterations to the jacket and pants. Looks like a bit of waist suppression would help the jacket fit better. Sigh. Back to the tailor's!

Rooting through places like Goodwill and thrift shops, while a largely thankless task that doesn't yield much for roughly 90% of the time, can occasionally turn up some gems. For instance, the clown in the photo above is wearing:

1) A summer weight, double-breasted sports jacket in wool by Alan Flusser, thrifted for US$7.99

2) Summer weight Giorgio Armani wool-silk pants made in Italy, thrifted for US$2.99.

3) A cotton Madras tie by Rooster, thrifted for US$5.99.

4) Land's End cotton dress shirt, purchased on sale several years ago.

5) Tasseled loafers by Cole Haan, purchased on sale in the summer of 2010.

6) Matching black leather belt, purchased on sale at Macy's in 2010.

So, there you have it. Three thrifted items combined with three new retail items, purchased at a discount. Despite the need for some waist suppression on the jacket, I felt pretty good in today's ensemble. Normally, I wouldn't purchase a black sports jacket -- my wife thinks it is actually midnight blue -- but it has a very subtle mustard yellow windowpane pattern that I really liked when I found the jacket last fall. And, hey, it's a Flusser, something we don't find too often here in my extremely style-challenged corner of the American Midwest.

Here's a slightly more relaxed pose, less obviously gothic and more Shakespearean this time, in which I deliver yet another soliloquy to the throngs of adoring fans, who have convened on my patio simply to hear me hold forth about old movies.

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Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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