Mrs. Franzos: Wobegon Days of Summer

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Wobegon Days of Summer

Garrison Keillor in his Seersucker Suit. Photo Credit: Michael Buck

I'm a voracious reader, always have been. I read anything and everything. When I was 6, I read all sides of the cereal box, every morning (It's part of a balanced breakfast). When I was eleven, I started in on my mom's nursing manuals (now I'm a hypochondriac). When I was a teenager, I read my parent's bathroom AARP magazines cover to cover (I have a Roth IRA?). I found an unlikely style icon within the pages of the AARP, sandwiched between a girdle advertisement and a Franklin Mint collector's plate ad. Garrison Keillor.

Photo Credit: Stan Franzos

You may know Garrison Keillor's sleepy baritone voice from the Saturday evening's, A Prairie Home Companion radio show. Or you may know his sarcastically wholesome writing that epitomizes the golden era of the American mid-west. Or if you are part of a younger generation or an upright citizen of another country, you may not know him at all. But believe me, there was an article with a corresponding iconic photo of him in that AARP magazine. He, the public radio icon in tortoise shell glasses, wore a seersucker suit with a red tie, red suspenders....red shoes. Keillor's ensemble stopped me in my tracks. He was a dapper Mark Twain and a Norman Rockwell illustration rolled into a 6'4" radio legend and slapped in red, white and blue for good measure. I immediately clipped out his image with my scissors (because that's what I did when I was a teenager-- I made lots and lots of esoteric collages on my highschool notebooks). My notebooks have long since gone the way of the dodo, but Keillor's sartorial imprint was permanently etched on my psyche. I wish I could dig up that picture of him for you. I tried, but the internet as we know it wasn't invented yet, but believe. He looked amazing and I've wanted to try out his signature look ever since. I couldn't think of a better time to try the seersucker/red shoe combo than the American-three-day-weekend-official-end-of-summer-holiday. Labor Day Weekend: an American Institution since 1887.

Photo Credit: Stan Franzos

I had a guest photographer this week, my father-in-law, Stan Franzos. We took these photos on the quaintly American main street of Charles Town, West Virginia. I'm wearing an asymmetrical top by BCBG with a J. Crew seersucker pencil skirt. For the red portion of the outfit, I'm wearing patent leather Christian Louboutin T-strap Coxinelle heels and carrying a vintage red Furla envelope clutch that I found at an estate sale for $1. I would wear this look to the Lake Wobegon County Labor Day Parade with a straw boater hat on my head and tumbler full of bourbon in my hand.

Photo Credit: Stan Franzos

The beauty and magic of summer lies in its brevity. As the evening comes earlier and earlier, I will pine for the endless days and firefly-filled nights. I will miss sitting on the back stoop of my house with a juicy tomato in one hand and salt shaker in the other. But such is life. Til we meet again Summer. Next year, same time.

"I never wanted to be known for longevity,

but rather for brilliant, tragically interupted brevity..."

--Garrison Keillor