Random Photographs from the Week. . .

Like father, like son.  

Start 'em young on the road to dressing nicely as I've mentioned here before at The Average Guy's Guide to Classic Style.  Even when things are extremely casual.  The Young Master wore this year's red leather dock-siders to his grandparents in the Pacific Northwest where he and his mother are right now.  So, it's been blessedly quiet for Dad here at home the last 1o days or so, miss 'em though I do.

My new Sperry Top-Siders  arrived this week. . .  since the Land's End ones shown above are starting to wear through (and fall apart) on the soles.  They'll remain in the summer rotation as long as possible though.  

The new footwear arrivals above need to be scuffed up a bit through normal wear, but they were instantly comfortable and have better support than the old ones.  These kinds of shoes, or their canvas deck shoe cousins, were standard summer wear for most of the men (and many of the boys) in my family during the evenings and weekends.  And whenever the extended clan gathered on either the Carolina coast or the Chesapeake Bay for two weeks each summer (usually July or August) during the 1940s-1980s.  Great Uncles Baxter and Zeb continued to wear their wingtips and dark knee-length dress socks with Bermuda shorts however!  

Sadly, those kinds of summer vacations fell by the wayside quite a few years ago now.  The final such one for yours truly was in August '96.  The houses and cottage have long since passed from family ownership as the older generations have died and younger family members have dispersed to other areas of the United States as well as other countries around the world.  Back at home, Northern Minnesota and The Upper Peninsula of Michigan are great places for summer vacations, assuming it's not a Black Fly year, but they aren't quite the same thing.

Dress for an evening out say I.  

Another ten days or so to go before the Grand Duchess and son return home, but don't despair for ol' Dad too much though.  While wife and child have been away, I've kept busy with various things here at home, hanging yet more family photos and some actual real live art plus attending to various other household tasks on the waiting list. . .  and even indulging a few hobbies of long standing that I have less time for now in the midst of adult and family life.  A couple we are close friends with also invited my to supper yesterday evening.  It was a typically casual Friday evening affair, but I opted more dressy gear -- appreciated by the Italian-born wife of the pair -- since the semester ended in early May, and I've otherwise lived in khaki shorts, polo or Madras shirts, and dock-siders ever since.  While their cat Darwin and I get along very well usually, he was not happy about this particular Kodak moment.

While I normally keep myself to myself, it was fun to converse about this and that before the meal, at the dining table, and in the living room afterwards, where the three of us and cat gathered once again for coffee and dessert.  And as with all truly good conversations, we wended our way aimlessly throughout the evening from one subject to the next, covering frivolous things like annoying spousal habits, the astounding real estate prices in the Northeast, and appropriate interior colors of Craftsman style houses, to more serious  stuff like the ongoing budgetary crisis of our small university and its associated fallout.  The evening ended far too soon, as most good things do, but it's always better to leave people wanting to see more of you than not, so I excused myself and returned home at about 10:30pm.  "Good stuff!" as the late Cary Grant was wont to remark.

Time for a trim on top, but the authentic Madras necktie (thrifted) and recently purchased (on sale) Dapper Classics socks look nice.

To close, lest any of you visitor to The Average Guy's Guide to Classic Style get the impression that I'm a completely hopeless, unapologetic, and elitist snob worthy of facing the firing squad when the Revolution comes, hold on to your hats.  The husband of said couple and I, along with a third mutual friend, one of the coolest poets and English professors you're likely ever to meet, plan to slum it a bit one evening this coming week.  Yep.  The plan is for us to get together for some pool and a few beers at a local dive, something I haven't done in quite a few years.  I'm looking forward to it.

-- Heinz-Ulrich