His View: To think, I once was a high school dandy

I had never thought of myself as a vain person, but all I had to do was to reflect back on my high school years. I recalled with embarrassment what I wore to impress the girls.

I had a different outfit every day of the week, and my favorite was my “blue” day. I sported blue slacks with a white alligator polo shirt with blue accents. I also wore black patent leather shoes.

Only now do I realize that I was a high school dandy. Only now do I see the truth in Berthold Auerbach’s insight that “the vain person is a solitary being.” My appearance distanced me from people rather than drawing them close.

I remember the other outfits less clearly. There was a brown one with clunky brogue shoes. I’m red-green color blind, and sometimes I see green as brown.

If that was the case, then that was only appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day, my birthday. On other days, this green outfit must have been a sight, and nobody cared to tell me.

Only Jon, Garfield the Cat’s goofy “master,” wears green socks and a green plaid jacket, as I once did in graduate school. When Jon calls out “where are my green socks?”, Garfield responds in disgust. Unlike my high school peers, my graduate school friends reacted like Garfield, and I threw the coat and socks in the far recesses of my closet.

My best friend, Doug, had lots of girlfriends, so I asked him what my problem was. He said that I should join him at the YMCA weight room. He assured me that if I were as buff as he was, the girls would come flocking.

I made great progress at the gym. Doug still had the best pecs and legs, but I developed some really nice biceps and abs.

When I rolled up my t-shirt sleeves like the greaser guys did, my 15½ inches looked pretty impressive. But not, apparently, to the girls.

Too bad that the dress code did not allow us to show off our abs. I then realized that lots of guys, who never went to the gym, had girlfriends. I return to Garfield’s Jon for yet another insight.

In a recent cartoon, Jon announces: “I think I’ll start working on my abs.” The next panel shows him looking down at his paunch. He then asks forlornly: “Do I have abs?” In another cartoon Garfield declares: “Muscles are overrated.”

Can you believe that this zero of a guy has a vet as a girlfriend? Or that Garfield has the cutest girl cat in the neighborhood? It must be the pheromones, which evidently I did not have.

One day my friend Doug said: “You know, Nick, your problem is that you do not know how to talk to girls. You must show that you care about them. It also helps to be funny.”

Of course, Doug was right, but I manage only about two “funnies” a month. I did ask some smart girls what they got on their precalculus tests, but I should have told them that they were the most beautiful creatures in the world.

In 2000, when the summer photos came back, I got a shock. I detected a bit of belly hanging over my belt. Thus began the slow disappearance of my vaunted six-pack. Over 23 years the only feature one might detect, if I flex, are half of the two beers on the top.

I cannot bring myself to say the “p” word, but at least mine is not so big. I’ve gone from a 32-inch waist to 38 inches, but it is still unsightly.

I now leave my shirts untucked in front, but I can hear my mother above say: “Tuck in your shirt tail”! I keep telling her that I’m too vain to do so.

I’ve always had “snake” hips, but now it is even more difficult to keep my pants up. Only a tight elastic waist band does the trick, but not every pant style has them.

Yes, I know what some men do. The sartorial accessory starts with “susp… .” I can’t bring myself to say the word, and I’m too vain to buy some.

Even with bad knees and an occasional sore back, Gier tries to keep fit, enjoying, modestly dressed of course, the paradise called the Palouse.