Recommended Reading for Levi Strauss’ Birthday

Levi Strauss, originator of the American 501 uniform, was born 180 years ago today.  Why do I know this?  Claire and I have children who attend an elementary school that requires the children to wear uniforms, but on Levi Strauss’ birthday they can wear jeans.  Levi Strauss is  their hero.  Mr. Strauss was a Bavarian immigrant who arrived in New York  in 1847 to work in his brothers’ dry goods store.  In 1853 he joined one of the largest mass immigrations in history and traveled to California to make his fortune.  No simpleton, he knew his money was buried in the 49ers’ pockets rather than the Sierras and he set out supplying the miners.  [If only those of us who bought up shares in Silicon Valley start ups remembered Levi's story and invested in Herman Miller and his Airon chair, at least the company still exists.]  A tailor in Nevada, Jacob Davis, contacted Levi about making durable pants for the miners.  They made jeans out of brown sailcloth with metal rivets at the points of strain, the pockets and the bottom of the button fly.  They obtained a patent on this use of metal rivets.  In flowed the money and the name ‘Levis’ is synonymous with jeans.

There is only one book that is perfect for this day of donning jeans, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares.  In case you haven’t heard the story, just before they leave for summer, four high school juniors find a pair of jeans in a thrift store that fits all of them even though they are different sizes (personally, I’m looking for a pair of pants that would fit me in the size I wore as a high school junior, now that would be magic).  They decide that they each will wear the pants for awhile, then ship them to the next girl for her turn.  The book follows the girls’ summer with four distinct voices, characters and experiences.  As the jeans travel around, they acquire patches and mementos and take on the character of a clothing scrapbook.  What I appreciate about the story is the emphasis on the importance of girlfriends and supporting your friends.  In this age of “mean girls,” it’s nice to have a book that shows how girlfriends mess up and still hang in there for each other.  Friendships take effort whether it be finding the time to have fun or being supportive or holding each other accountable or forgiving one another for blowing it.  This series of books (there are four in total) gives examples of the mistakes girlfriends make, but ultimately shows the triumph of their relationship.

The story has spawned other sharing adventures.  I learned of four girls who were so inspired by the book that they decided to get a pair of “magical jeans” themselves–a pair they could trade around all summer long while they went their separate ways to camp, summer houses, on trips, etc.  One mom took them shopping.  They wanted to buy the jeans used, like in the book, so they went first to a couple of thrift stores, but unfortunately thrift stores don’t have a wide selection of magical jeans–especially in girls sizes 10-12–so they wound up at the Gap where, after a very long time spent picking out pants and trying them on, they decided that a pair of denim shorts would best accommodate their different shapes and sizes, so those become their traveling pants.  And travel the shorts did–all over the country all summer long.  The girls worked out a very complicated schedule of mailing/passing the shorts back and forth (which one of the mothers thankfully simplified), ensuring that each girl would have the shorts during her biggest adventure of the summer. The mom whose daughter had them first ran out and bought lots of fabric paint and permanent markers, so the girls could decorate the shorts in some way that would remind them always of their summer adventures.  They also sewed on patches they found on their journeys, and wrote long entries in a journal that they passed along with the shorts.  When one girl found five dollars lying in the road while wearing the shorts, they all agreed the shorts truly WERE magical.  It was a pretty special things for friends to do.

In our family, Kelsey wanted to read this book in 4th grade.  We were standing in a bookstore and she brought it to me.  Making one of those off the cuff parental decisions, I told her she couldn’t read it until she was in 6th grade.  I pretty much made that up other than I saw some of the girl’s in Kyle’s class reading it when they were in sixth grade.  The minute school was out at the end of 5th grade and Kelsey was “officially” a 6th grader, she wanted to buy the book.  Amazing how she could remember that one conversation over a year earlier and she can’t remember to feed the dog unless reminded.  Personally, I think she may have been too young.  I think this series is far more mature than the Twilight saga.  But I’ve learned my lesson, now when she asks for a book that is too mature for her, I tell her she can read it in college.  When she is old enough in high school, I’ll get the book for her and look like a good guy.