(Published in the May, 1995, GOFC Newsletter)
The other morning, when I was getting dressed to go fishing, my wife looked at me and said, "Hey, those are nice jeans! Where did you get those?" Now the jeans I had on were my old jeans I had been wearing fishing for years, pretty faded and beat-up, and I told her that. I was very careful to keep them separate from my "good" jeans that my wife bought for me from a store called the Void or the Gap, or some such name. Although my fishing clothes are very comfortable, I know that I am not allowed to wear my fishing stuff anyplace but going fishing, so I was surprised to hear her say, "Look how nice and faded they are! Don't wear those fishing, you'll just mess them up."
Well, her words gave me an idea. I knew that young people did tend to wear beat-up clothes. There is even a name for this type of dress -- grunge. (When I was growing up, there was another name for it, but now it is called grunge). Of course, when people buy jeans that are already faded and beat-up, they are more expensive than the new-looking ones. I remembered seeing a TV show in which a hunter showed how he "customized" jeans and then sold them for more money. He took a reporter out and demonstrated how he set the jeans up on a tree and then blew some holes in them with his 12-gauge shotgun. "You mean you just blow holes in them and then sell them for twice as much?" the reporter asked skeptically. "Hey, it's pretty artistic," replied the hunter. "You can't just blow out the crotch, you have to know what you're doing."
"Well, hell," I thought, "I could buy some jeans, wear them fishing for a couple of months, and then sell them for twice as much. If a hunter can do it, I sure can." The sun and salt really fade jeans, and we all know that when you catch a fish, it loves to squirt all kinds of stuff on the fisherman and his clothes. ("Squirt" is about the politest word you can use for this and covers several different processes.) Jeans are useful places to wipe your hands of bait, slime, sunscreen, squid ink, and miscellaneous, all of which have their customizing effect. It is also real easy to make those holes in the jeans that are so prized these days. Hooks can do that about as good as buckshot. (In the clothing industry, a hole caused by a hook in a pair of jeans is called a "Doris" for some reason. Nobody in that industry is sure why.)
This idea could really work out. People would be able to buy the beat-up clothes they want, we could make some money, and it wouldn't be so difficult to justify fishing trips to the non-fishing members of our households. "Gee, sorry Honey, I know I promised to take you to the Bumskunks to see their root canal slides, but this big order for jeans just came in and I have to spend the whole day out fishing, wiping cigar minnows and squid on my legs, and getting sun and salt all over them. Please apologize for me and tell them it's business."
Most people who have a good idea like this would keep it to themselves and selfishly make all the money. I'm sharing this idea -- there is a big market for these jeans and we can all benefit. Just let me know what size jeans you want to work on.
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