Smiley Anders for October 23, 2009

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate columnist
• Published: Oct 23, 2009 - Page: 1B

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Jackie Upton gets nostalgic about a once-humble item of clothing that now dominates wardrobes around the world:

“I remember my first pair of jeans, way before Vogue magazine and Diana Vreeland made them fashionable.

“When I was in high school in the late ’40s in central Illinois, the only place to buy jeans was at DeBuhr’s Feed and Seed, and they were for males.

“All the guys wore them, and the jocks topped them off with white T-shirts and letter sweaters.

“Those jeans shrank like crazy when washed and hung on the line, and the trick came in figuring out how much too large to buy them so they would shrink to your size.

“No high-school girls wore them. As a matter of fact, we didn’t even wear slacks to school.

“A classmate decided to give jeans a try, and we were all appalled and excited at her daring.

“The only acceptable top to wear with them was one of Dad’s dress shirts. I was small, my dad was big and the jeans were a bit baggy. But I just knew I was in the fashion forefront.”

Pizza dreams

When I was out for a couple of days with bronchitis, I felt so lousy that I lost my interest in food. Really. …

I would take the various potions prescribed for my illness, then dine on something bland — oatmeal with honey and soy milk, like that.

I knew I was recovering when one night I dreamed I was at The Pastime bar downing a boudin pizza and an adult beverage.

When I woke up, I was starving, and attacked a wonderful potato soup that Lady K had spiked with garlic and Tony Chachere’s.