Back in 1873, people were making pants. All kinds of pants, I imagine. But one fellow name Levi Strauss was making some pants at that time, too. He started out fashioning them from tent canvas. Then he switched to denim.
Another guy, a tailor, from Denver named Jacob Davis, had bought some of those pants from Strauss, somewhere along the line, and really liked them. He liked the way they fit, the way they looked, all of it. But Davis figured out that putting little copper rivets in the seams made the pants stronger. You know how iron makes humans stronger? I guess it’s the same deal with copper and pants.
Anyway, Davis asked Strauss for money to fund this idea. And on this date, the May 20th, back in 1873, they decided to go in together and put copper rivets in those Levi denim jeans. They got the patent for it too.
It should be some kind of a Memorial Holiday of me. In the cooler months, I wear Levi jeans about 99.3% of the time. And hooded sweatshirts. Of varying colors. I have a LOT of both. You can count on me wearing this combination. Seriously.
I know, I know. How can I wear the same thing, day in, day out? I’d like to give you some “normal” explanation, but there is none. It is just the version of me that has evolved on this planet. I wear what is comfortable and I like it. Did I mention the Brooks Running Shoes too?
It could have started out with my early shapings. I was in Catholic school from the get-go. We had uniforms. We put them on day in, day out, and I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to wear to school. High school was much the same. A fairly tight dress code. So maybe that was part of it.
Regardless, I keep a full set of copper rivets on my lower half every day. Yeah. There’s a whole industry devoted to wearing copper bracelets for your health. So I just wear them on my legs and booty. Those rivets.
It also gives me a soul connection with Rosie the Riveter. And all those fearless female workers who did their duty here in the United States during World War II. While none of them put rivets in jeans, they were punching planes together elsewhere. My wearing little rivets help me to channel them, and their determination and gumption. Or not, but I suppose it could happen.
Or maybe this connection is the actual rivet. Rivets, as we know, are fasteners.
They fasten one thing to another, by placing a cylinder on one side, and a rod on the other, and smooshing them together to form a joint. Not the kind you smoke, but the kind that puts two parts together. A joiner. A think that joins.
So as you can see, my repetitive clothes-wearing is actually far deeper than any of you might have imagined. In fact, it is deeper than I imagined. Blue Jeans and rivets.
Next week, we’ll discuss the hoods on my hoodies, and why I think it is funny to wear them backward and walk around the house like Frankenstein, reciting Edgar Allen Poe poems, monotone.
A truly riveting experience for anyone watching.
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Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.
— Jacqueline Woodson
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People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.
— Vince Lombardi
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Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
— George Eliot
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