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I stand five foot six, or used to, and my left leg is shorter than my right. My belly is big now, in my old age, but my waist size is officially 32 and has been, long as I can remember. I wear jeans more than any other kind of pants, and the Levi 505’s that I like never have a short enough inseam, so I have to ask a friend or a seamstress to cut and hem them when I buy them new.
One time in the mid-1970’s, when my then wife and I were living in Los Angeles, and, come to think of it, my now wife and her then husband were also living in Los Angeles at that same time, I happened to be in the produce aisle of a Lucky’s grocery store in Highland Park, when a Chicano guy maybe about my height and build but I don’t remember for sure, came up to me and said, “What size pants you wear?” He was clutching to his chest a folded-over kraft paper grocery sack with something inside it.
I told him, “Thirty-two waist.” I don’t believe anyone else ever asked me that question in a grocery store, before or since.
The guy grinned happily and opened the sack and brought out two folded pairs of Levi button-fly jeans that looked to be clean and looked to be pretty darn new. “You want to buy these?” the guy asked. “Ten dollars, two pants,” he said. He put one pair under his left arm and shook out the other pair and held it out to me.
I gave it a good looking over. It wasn’t crisp new, but it wasn’t faded, worn, or torn. The leather patch above the right hip pocket looked the way it ought to look, and it said W 32 L 30. “Why are you selling these?” I asked.
“I need the money,” said the guy.
I held the pants up against my own and then asked to see the other pair. They were like the first, button-fly, no glaring flaws, W 32 L 30. “Yeah, man,” I said, “I’ll give you ten bucks.” And I did.
Best two pair of pants I ever owned, or, at least, they made me happier than any others. I do hope the Chicano guy lived happily ever after, as well.
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