The Motherhood of the Traveling Pants

In January of 1991 I had a big skiing disagreement with a very skinny Aspen tree up on Elk Camp on Snowmass Mountain.  The tree won.  And the ski patrol carted me off in a sled.

X rays at Aspen Valley Hospital later revealed that the very skinny tree had shattered my upper left tibial plateau.  (Btw, you know you’re screwed when you ask the X ray tech, “Is it broken?” and she can’t meet your eye as she evasively says, “Oh, I don’t know…I really can’t read this… We’d better wait for the doctor…”)

I was screwed.  Royally.

After a suitable two-day waiting period, the orthopod slapped me into a chic black cast that went from my thigh to my ankle.  And more good news as he told me that the tibia is the slowest-healing bone in the body and I would now be sporting that sucker for the next twelve weeks.

For the first month the cast was no impediment to getting dressed.  I had been confined to my bed.  Strictly forbidden from even venturing downstairs for thirty days. (When I protested this house arrest, my doctor countered with, “That leg shattered like glass into a million pieces.  Do you want to lose it?  Stay in bed!”  Right on.)

But once I was given the green light to get up on the crutches, I had a problem.  As stunning as my new plaster-of-paris leg was, I couldn’t get any pants over it.  And this was January in Chicago, remember?  I had to make follow-up doctor visits, and I needed something that could slide over the cast.

My son, Nick, then eleven, had the solution for me.  A pair of his black, nylon “Club Sportwear”  workout pants- with a snappy neon orange drawstring.  The cuffs had velcro closures and they were roomy and adjustable enough to accommodate my new addition.

I wore Nick’s pants every time I had to leave the house in February, March and April. They really came in handy as I crutched my way to doctor’s appointments and rehab sessions and finally to the gym to regain my ability to ski again.  And walk.

(Interesting Medical Sidebar:  It turned out to be much easier to ski than to walk. Although I was tentatively schussing my way downhill that very same December, it took me years until I could do stairs or stand on one leg again.)

And although I ditched the cast in 1991, I’ve worn Nick’s pants ever since.  He had rapidly outgrown them but I never did.

For the last twenty-two years, I have been wearing the pants of an eleven year old boy.

Sure, over the years, these black pants have suffered some wear and tear.  Especially in the derrière region.  (Come on, guys.  I’m a writer.  I don’t work standing up.)

They have had the seat-seam sewn a few times, and I ripped off the right ankle closure, and the snappy orange drawstring snapped a couple of years ago and had to be replaced by an ordinary white shoe lace.  But all things considered, the pants held up amazingly well.

For twenty-two years.

When was the last time you had an article of clothing that lasted so long?

I was so impressed that I googled the company.  The records showed that Club Sportwear was a private concern founded in California in 1984.  A man named Tom Knapp had started it as an undergrad at USC.  He had T-shirts and elastic-waist volley ball shorts made in Santa Ana and had sold them out of his student apartment.

Fast forward to today.

After twenty-five years in the action sportswear game, Mr. Knapp sold his company and changed life lanes.  He is currently a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Please bear with me as I send him this Letter From Elba thank you note:

Dear Professor Knapp,

I am writing this to inform you that I recently had to replace a pair of your Club Sport black pants.  They ripped, frayed and tore beyond any hope of repair and I reluctantly had to stop wearing them.

They had held up, however, through twenty-two years of sitting, washings and the general wear and tear that pants get.

So thank you for making a product right here in the USA that performed so beautifully. It makes me proud to have been made in America, too.

I do not want my money back.

Best regards, Ellen Ross

Oh, lest I forget.

Thanks for the loan, Nick.

As ever, Mom