DEEP SOUTH PREJUDICES AND RIGID CONFORMITY IN 1950'S ALABAMA......'DEVIATIONS FROM "NORMAL" WOULD MEET WITH SEVERE PUNISHMENT, TO INSURE THIS UNYIELDING CONFORMITY....

A friend recently mentioned a Prince performance from 1985.....which made me think of a beach visit, in the 1950's......Southern guys, in Huntsville, wore big legged "swim attire" with drawstring waists......except for one!.......When my "artsy-fartsy" friend sported this sexy bikini....I was inspired to hit the men's department of Black's, in Birmingham, where I found a blue spandex bikini with drawstring sides.....even more provocative.......Eager to sport my new suit, I wore it.....covered with a wrap-around beach towel....which fell off as I exitited my father's car........Shocked, he insisted that I wear a cabana set with sailboats and beachballs printed on the really 'square'....(the fashion in Alabama, then.....)It took lots of courage to do anything different in the 1950's South! But...I didn't want to wear anything that the kids in the second photo would have worn then..........Of course, those Birmingham kids, my age, would have lynched me....just for wearing my blue bikini, wouldn't they? Well, that was an oblique lesson on Alabama History, wasn't it? Even more reviled were 'fags' and 'yankees'.........these guys are all wearing penny loafers, white socks and solid color (khaki or denim) pegged pants, shortish hair and either white t-shirts or solid, horizontal stripe or plaid.......the Rigid dress code of the 1950's South......in 1958, I did not own a pair of penny loafers, woud not wear horizontal stripes OR plaid clothing........shopping, by then, only in Army/Navy surplus stores or Thrifts.....I returned the back-to-school clothing that my mother got from Brooks Bros. in Nashville (1963), getting a cash refund, that I later spend on horse races and gambling........I became a "clothes horse" out of Rebellion, I think.........