Some Things We'll Be Embarrassed About in Twenty Years

I watched a couple of young men walking ahead of me today. What caught my attention was the odd way they were walking. Their pants were slung so low the crotch was at knee length and they had to walk with their feet spread pretty wide apart to keep the pants from dropping down around their ankles. They looked for all the world as though they'd had an accident in their pants.

I know this is the style and, even though it looks silly to older people, I understand the young men's attempt at setting their generation apart from the previous one. Every generation does the same thing and every generation looks back on the styles of their younger years with a mixture of horror and laughter.

My generation has to carry the shame of the beehive hairdo. In the 50's and 60's we backcombed our hair into towers above our heads, hairsprayed it until it felt like stone, and then decorated it with little bows. Looking back, we all looked as though we had huge deformed heads.

I asked my daughter who is a 70's child what styles from that era fill her with shame. She couldn't come up with one. She said that all those styles have re-emerged and are fashionable again. Maybe there's hope for a return of the beehive hairdo.