Watch Pockets, Locker Loops and the Long-ness of Life

Have you ever wondered? Or maybe you know. There are remnants of the past hiding in our everyday life today. If you look closely, without even cracking open a history book, you will notice that they are practically everywhere! One vestigial reminder that things were once very different is the small watch pocket that remains on a good pair of blue jeans.

First used with Levi's jeans in 1890, the small receptacle you find above the front right pocket is a reminder that necessities change yet some things endure. It once held the ever-nostalgic pocket watch in readiness for use. In fact, jeans themselves started as simply practical work wear described as “waist overalls.” We still find them one of the most comfortable, versatile articles of clothing today.

  

Tacked into place between the shoulder blades of many button up shirts, we find a little loop of material. This handy contrivance is a locker loop. Said to have originated with the US Navy, they were added to shirts to prevent wrinkles and save space while shirts were being hung in lockers in small, confined spaces. Around the early 1900’s, they became a preppy status symbol in Ivy league schools.

Collars were added to shirts because men needed something to cover and hold their neckties. The trend continued, and we still wear collars today, while they have no purpose, except style. Progress has a funny way of making various things irrelevant, while others endure.

The modern business suit, a nod to military regalia of the past, has survived the pendulum of societal styles. If your suit jacket has a petite pocket above its flap pocket, it was originally designed as a dedicated ticket pocket. This convenience allowed men to refrain from fumbling around for their train ticket. That little buttonhole on the jacket lapel is not technically for a flower, though that is what we use it for today. There used to be a button on the opposite side to button up your jacket lapel and pull it a little closer to ward off the cold. Like wind through the trees, time indeed moves onward, but any manner of things remain the same.

During WW1, wrist watches were invented to help soldiers synchronize time. Today, they are practically obsolete with the use of smart phones. Bustles, rain bonnets, hoops, rubber pants for babies, celluloid collars, and tricorn hats have all had their day. As the ever-flowing stream travels from the mountaintop to the ocean and back again, time has a way of staying the same, yet always changing. Although most don’t like it, change is inevitable.

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it…. Life is long if you know how to use it.” -Seneca 4bc - 65ad

When we pause to reflect on our lives, we often find the past fixed, the present tangible, and the future undecided. We fear that our life is slipping away from us as time marches forward. Like watch pockets and locker loops, portions of what you do today will affect tomorrow’s future. We can make the most of today. God gives us opportunity every day of our lives. Today, shake off your old chains, look toward tomorrow, forgive and be forgiven, for the old is gone and today has enough trouble of its own.

~Rhonda