The Corduroy Coat

Denton, Texas, 1965: Paul Miner had this camel-colored corduroy sports jacket. It had leather buttons, and leather patches on the elbows. He loaned it to me one day.

On that day, wearing the corduroy coat with my round glasses and unruly hair, being a hippy and all, Patty Cake said, “You look like Bob Dylan.”

I said, “Who?”

The next day she brought a record album to my cool apartment, and she gave it to me. It showed Mr. Zimmerman walking down the street in NYC, head down, hair unruly, jeans and a jacket only slightly like mine.

I listened to the album. It was wierd, and good. I asked around. People liked Bob Dylan. I supposed that looking like Bob Dylan would be a good thing; though, as I recall, nobody ever again accused me of it, probably because in truth I don’t resemble him much at all.

What I’m getting at is that I kept the corduroy jacket almost forever. I suppose it eventually got returned, but it went everywhere with me. I have a picture of myself in a Villa Acuna bar wearing this jacket. Somewhere another photo shows me in the jacket and the knickerbockers from Madame X’s store.

Jeans, t-shirt, and this jacket became my official hippy garb.

Come winter, I froze. The rest of the time it was fine.

Why do we become so attached to these things?

Looking back now — no matter how mad it may sound — I can’t help feeling that, if only I could wear that corduroy jacket again … then everything would be fun again, the grief and sorrows of later years would fade into a mist, and I’d again be young forever, laughing into eternity, as we did.