Denis Lehane: Burst britches have me going to pieces
However, there comes a time in every man’s life when he can take no more. When he has to put the hand up and shout ‘Stop!’ When he has come to the end of his tether.
Well that moment happened to me this very morning when, as I leaped over a thorny ditch in hot pursuit of a weanling bull, the crotch of my pants ripped in two.
“Blast you to hell!” I shouted after the wayward bull as he fled the scene and into the mist.
Then I inspected my trousers only to discover they were ruined.
“Tis a fright to God,” says I to myself, “that in this day and age, a man cannot be allowed go about his farming business without his britches coming asunder.”
The reason I was so upset in the first place was because it wasn’t the first time such a thing occurred to a pants of mine. In fact, it wasn’t even the first time this year.
Whatever is in the makeup of the new fangled pants, whether it’s a change in material or stitching, they are not a patch on the old models.
The modern pants, to my mind, are no longer manufactured to cope with real work, the kind of tasks you and I perform on the farm every day.
And just so as you know, I’m not writing here about some old pair of flimsy trousers that they wear out in Bermuda or someplace. No, only the denim variety.
The very type of thing that is supposed to withstand every eventuality. And yet cannot cope nowadays with the slightest exertion.
I mean, in the old westerns I can never recall seeing the pants of John Wayne rip in two when he threw his big arse over the back of his horse.
The Duke never had to contend with such an embarrassing scenario. He was spared the blushes and was able to ride off into the sunset with his pants intact.
And I’m sure fellows might say to me, sure what does it matter if you go around the place with a ripped pants or indeed with no pants at all? ‘Who will see you out there in the wilds of West Cork?’
Well, you’d be surprised who’d see me. From an adventurous hill walker to a Jehovah’s Witness, you never know from one end of the day to the next who you might bump into.
And a fellow going around without an arse to his pants is at a disadvantage from the start, regardless of who he might meet.
My point really is that the modern day working pants isn’t half as rugged as we are lead to believe. With regards to real work, they haven’t a leg to stand on.
Of course, we still have the commercials and advertisements with the fellow and he wearing the denim trousers and he looking like he could get up to all kinds of mischief without a problem of any kind. Well don’t be fooled, because he’s only a clown of a model who wouldn’t know a shovel from a pike.
Take that very same yahoo out to the wilds of West Cork, ask him to leap over a good thorny ditch and see if his pants doesn’t rip right down the middle. Rugged my arse.
We are being let down by our pants, it’s high time us farmers pulled up our socks on the issue.
