THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602220153
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Suspenders first became a part of my attire six years ago, after a surgeon's scalpel made it uncomfortable to wear a belt.
Ever since, I've worn what my dad described as ``braces,'' and I recommend them for lonely bachelors.
I don't want to be branded as a male chauvinist, or make sweeping generalities. But suspenders, it seems, fascinate women.
Dozens of days I've been waiting in line at a store when a total stranger behind me grabs my suspenders, pulls back and then fires them like she was shooting a slingshot.
The first few times it happened, I nearly jumped out of my shoes when women used my back for target practice with my own braces.
My suspenders have been popped while I was strolling through the mall. ``Ker-plunk'' they've gone while I was sitting at the bar of a crowded saloon. They've been pulled in doctors' offices, in churches, at cocktail parties, courtooms, picnics, on the streets.
Snapped by women who were total strangers, from all walks of life.
Young girls have fired them with a giggle. Bikini-clad beauties - not thinking of the danger should I respond in kind - have pinged me at poolsides. Blue-blooded ladies touring tomb-like museums, wearing sweeping hats and Dior dresses, have pulled the trigger with white-gloved hands and shouted ``Bang!''
Usually they apologize - after the act.
``I'm sorry,'' they'll say, sometimes with an embarrassed laugh, sometimes rushing off with head down, sometimes nose in air staring straight ahead pretending it was not them.
The most memorable snap was in a mall while I was window shopping.
I spun around, and the culprit - a lovely fortyish stranger accompanied by a teenage girl - looked at me and smiled innocently.
``Mother! How could you?'' cried her daughter, covering her face and darting off.
``An irresistible impulse,'' said her mother, tossing her head coquettishly, and winking.
I winked back. That's heady stuff for a man of maturity who is often mistaken for Wilfred Brimley but never thought of as Robert Redford with a mustache.
But without a word to mama, I went on. My wife, who points out she married me when I didn't wear braces, doesn't cotton much to me talking to strangers.
Not long after that, at a party where I knew almost nobody, I discovered anew that braces could be a bachelor's best friend.
When the party warmed up I shed my coat, and in the process unhooked the snap that holds the suspender to the pants.
I debonairly pretended nothing was wrong, and with a martini in one hand, tried to re-hook the contraption with the other as my pants sagged and my shirttail flipped free.
I was backing toward a corner when a throaty voice said, ``Stand still, sweetie. I'll fix you up.''
I stopped, and looked over my shoulder. A honey blonde in a bare-shouldered blue dress stuffed my shirt carefully back down my pants, then hooked my suspender back in place.
``Thank you,'' I said. She introduced herself and we chatted like old friends. Anyone who hooks you up so your pants don't fall can't stay a stranger long.
Similar good-deed doers have helped me at parties ever since.
I don't know many other men who wear braces, so maybe I'm making more out of the fascination with suspenders than I should.
But Larry King Live is the king of suspender wearers - and he's met enough women to marry four or five times.
``And to divorce three or four times,'' says my wife, without a wink. by CNB