Remembrances of Things Past

Have you ever found yourself in a place, far, far away from home, that reminds you, quite vividly, of another time and place in your life?

A chartered plane at one's disposal is a most addicting indulgence, I find
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

It just happened to me, Dear Reader.

Belgians are the only way to fly, don't you think?
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

I have recently returned from a week with dear friends on a tiny sand slip of an island way out in the tropic Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by turquoise waters, pale pink beaches, and nights spent dancing in postage stamp sized clubs to the pounding beat and soaring vocals of deep house music.

The view from the restaurant at the hotel we frequented during our stay
Photograph by Reggie Darling

It took me back many years, to when I was an habitué of the enormous dance clubs that once littered the downtowns of New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco, where I spent many, many nights dancing and carousing to the light fantastic, mind-bending music of the great, internationally acclaimed deejays of the 1980s and 1990s.

The picturesque house we rented in the island's little town
Image courtesy of Hibiscus Hill

I did so then with a close knit group of friends that I no longer see anymore.  After a decade of intense and constant interaction with each other we were blown asunder by the winds of change, shifting priorities, and evolving alliances.

The languorous piazza where we spent much of our time during our stay
Photograph by Reggie Darling

I will always look back on my laughter-filled years with my old gang as honeyed and intensely and insanely fun.  It was a close group of amusing, clever, and game-for-anything friends.  We were young, affluent, and handsome, and the world was ours for the taking.  Out all the time, shaking it, shouting with laughter, we were giddy and glad of it.

I spent many nights at dance parties similar to this one in La Grande Bellezza
Video courtesy of Janus Films

I'm no longer friends with that gang, though, with one or two notable exceptions.  I upset the apple cart when Lady Destiny raised her hand and tossed me the bewitching Boy Fenwick.  One look at him and I was smitten.  There was no going back for me.  After much hand wringing and with my heart racing I flew the coop and found myself deliriously soaring in the oxygenated air of the suddenly new and unexpected, excitedly and nervously anticipating what would come next, my fingers crossed.

Bougainvillea was everywhere on the island
Photograph by Reggie Darling

I ask you, what does one do when confronted by Destiny?  You follow her lead, Dear Reader, because you must.  That's why they call it destiny, after all . . .

I identify in certain ways with the character of Jep Gambardella
in La Grande Bellezza, as seen here in a still from the film
Image courtesy of Janus Films

And that's what I found myself reflecting upon as I danced the night away in the tiny nightclubs of the island I visited.  There I was, all these years later, laughing and dancing with another very special group of sophisticated, world-traveled style people of wit and good will.  My friends.  And each and every one of us was ready for the fun and frolic that was there to be had for the asking.

The view from the window of the plane we chartered to fly us back
to where we came from
Photograph courtesy of James Littlefield

Take it from me, Dear Reader, there is another act.

I'm the living proof of it.

Ella Fitzgerald Saved My Life

In my early teens I spent a lot of time by myself, alone.

As I have written before, as the youngest of four children I was the only one living at home with my parents during the several years leading up to when I went off to Saint Grottlesex.  We had recently moved to Connecticut from Washington, D.C., and into a beautiful, albeit glacial, modernist house at the end of a winding road on the top of a steep hill, with few nearby neighbors.  My parents' marriage had taken a serious turn for the worse by then, and they were barely on speaking terms.  They were often away, and I spent many evenings and weekends alone in our house.  Even when my parents were present physically, more often than not they were not present emotionally.  They had other things in their minds, I was later to learn.

If you've seen the film Ice Storm you'll have a fairly good idea of what my home life was like at the time.

At thirteen, then, I found myself rudderless in a strange new world where everything had suddenly gone haywire, and I was in a state of shock.  I had been very happy in Washington, where we lived in a rambling house in a neighborhood full of children my own age, and I had loved the country day school I attended there, where I was popular and had a close knit group of friends.  Now I found myself living in a strange modern house with parents who no longer spoke to each other in a strange and remote New England suburb where I knew no one, and I was attending a strange, decidedly mediocre school full of strange people who weren't all that interested in welcoming a newcomer into their ranks.  I felt awkward and alien, as if I'd been dropped there from the sky.  Given the physical isolation of the house where I lived and the fact that neither of my parents were at all inclined (or available) to shuttle me about to promote my social life, it was challenging for me to make any friends.  Besides, it was assumed that I'd be leaving for boarding school in a year or two, so why bother?

Nonetheless, it was a damnably solitary and lonely existence for Reggie, and he didn't care for it one bit.

But that's not the point of this story, Dear Reader.  No, it is the context for it.

Reggie is a resourceful chap, and he isn't one to sit around bemoaning his fate, crying into his lukewarm, curdled milk.  No, when things don't work out for Reggie as he planned, he finds a way to do something about it.  Which is exactly what I did.

I discovered Ella Fitzgerald.

The album that started it all . . .

One evening when I found myself, yet again, alone at home, I opened the door to the cabinet containing my parents' record collection, to see what I could find to amuse myself.  Both my parents were jazz aficionados, and I grew up listening to albums by Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane, and also Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, and Miriam Makeba.  My father was also a fan of Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me era recordings, and he loved Benny Goodman's later, jazz records, too.  Flipping through the albums that evening I came across Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook.  I didn't recall ever listening to it, and so I put it on the turntable of our KLH stereo sound system to give it a try.

It was on a KLH stereo sound system like this one, ca. 1966,
that I played the records that changed my life
Image courtesy of furnishmevintage.com

I've never been the same since.

I instantly fell in love with Miss Fitzgerald's lovely, rich, crystal clear voice, along with Nelson Riddle's lush arrangements, and I was transfixed.  I couldn't get enough of it!  I found half a dozen more of her recordings on the cabinet's shelves, and over the next weeks and months I played them over and over until I knew every word of every song, and I could sing along to Ella's marvelous and impeccable phrasing without missing a beat.

I soon found my way into the bins at record stores searching for more Ella Fitzgerald albums, and I amassed several dozen of them to add to my parents' collection.  I bought many of the other Great American Songbook albums that she recorded, including most of what she made under the Verve label, and also earlier albums she recorded under the Decca label.

While other thirteen year old boys I knew at the time were obsessed with the music of Cream and Jethro Tull, I was swingin' to the musical beat of Miss Fitzgerald, far away in my own little world.  I soon broadened my listening to include her peers, including Frank Sinatra, Keely Smith, Julie London, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, and I also developed an appreciation for the horn-filled Big Band recordings of the great bandleaders of the 1940s.  This was the music that came to define my teenage years and that I continue to enjoy today, along with more contemporary fare.

I consider those few lonely years I spent in Connecticut as a lad as fortunate ones, for it was then that I was introduced to—and took to heart—the sublime music and superb vocal performers of the pre-rock and roll Great American Songbook.  Listening to it transported me away from my solitary existence into a sophisticated, grownup world of swell nightclubs, swinging orchestras, vocal champagne, the shimmer of romance, and the glorious singing of the incomparable Miss Ella Fitzgerald, the most talented popular female vocalist of the twentieth century.

This is my absolute favorite Ella Fitzgerald album.
I play it at least once or twice a month

My love affair with Ella Fitzgerald has been a life-long one, and has continued unabated since I first came across that Cole Porter songbook album more than forty years ago.  I was fortunate to see Miss Fitzgerald in concert three or four times, first as an undergraduate at Yale in the nineteen seventies, when she was still relatively in her prime, and last at Carnegie Hall in the nineteen nineties, when she was a very old and fragile lady.  I will always treasure the memories of those concerts.

Thank you, Miss Ella Fitzgerald, for befriending a young Reggie all those years ago, and for giving him so much pleasure then, and ever since.

The Pine Club's House Dressing Redux

Today I am reissuing a post that I put up several years ago about finding a bottle of salad dressing in the Siaconset Market on Nantucket from the legendary Pine Club of Dayton, Ohio.

The Pine Club's House Dressing
as photographed today on Nantucket

I'm back on island for several weeks again this August, and was delighted to find the Pine Club's salad dressing is still stocked on the market's shelves.  I've been enjoying its tasty tangyness almost daily ever since.  Here's my original post about it, which I hope you like, Dear Reader.

The other day I made a late-afternoon trip to the Siasconset Market here on Nantucket to pick up some last-minute supplies for dinner.  It's much closer to where we are staying on the island and more convenient for a quick visit than the Stop & Shop (for supermarket staples) or Bartlett's Farm (for heirloom vegetables and best-quality comestibles).  While I've shopped at these latter two grocers during our visit (Bartlett's has been an almost daily destination), they are too long a distance for a quick run.  Well, about as much of a distance as one can experience on an island as modestly sized as Nantucket.

The Pine Club house dressing,

ready to dress a salad on our deck on Nantucket

The Siasconset Market is a remarkable little store.  For the uninitiated, one would think it would be an unlikely source for a good selection of "gourmet" groceries.  First of all, it's tiny.  And second, it's rather remote, far away from the hustle and bustle of mid-island.  But when one examines what the Market has to offer, one is pleased to find a highly focused selection of edibles and household items that belie a razor-sharp understanding of the Market's affluent, WASPy clientele.

The Siasconset Market

Words cannot express my delight during a recent visit to the Market at coming across a bottle of house salad dressing from the Pine Club, of Dayton, Ohio.  Yes, Dear Reader, you read that correctly.  I'm talking jarred salad dressing!  At first I was drawn to the bottle by its charmingly retro-looking label, thinking "Oh, that looks worth checking out."  But when I stopped to examine it more closely I was surprised to see that the Pine Club referred to on the bottle was none other than a restaurant by that name where I spent several memorable evenings almost twenty years ago, when I visited Dayton on business.  I have thought of the Pine Club fondly ever since, longing to visit it again.  But Reggie hasn't found himself anywhere near Dayton in the intervening years, nor has he figured out a sufficiently suitable justification for going there, except to return to the Pine Club for another splendid meal.

The Pine Club's facade

Image courtesy of roadfood.com

As I drove back to our house I wondered, how did a jarred salad dressing from a restaurant in Dayton, Ohio, make its way to the shelves of the Siasconset Market, nearly a thousand miles away?

And then I pieced it together . . .

At the time I visited Dayton I was working as a bond analyst at one of the major rating agencies, where one of my colleagues was a fellow named George M.  I liked George, and he and I shared a love of eating in still-vital old-line restaurants, as well as a fondness for the island of Nantucket.  When George learned that I would be traveling to Dayton on business, he said that I should be sure to have dinner one night at the Pine Club, a beloved old-time steakhouse in the city, known for its delicious aged steaks and chops and a knotty pine interior unchanged since the late 1940s.  It turned out that the Pine Club was owned by a friend of George's named Dave Hulme who had bought the restaurant a decade beforehand, intending--among other things--to preserve its old-fashioned roadhouse charm.  Dave owned a house on Nantucket, too, and George would regularly visit him there during the summer to play golf, and Dave would sing the praises of his restaurant as they traversed the links.

David Hulme, owner of the Pine Club

Image courtesy of the Dayton Business Journal

As can be seen in the photograph, above, the Pine Club derives its name from its entirely wood-paneled interior (walls and ceilings), dating from the 1940s.  It is regularly voted the best steakhouse in Dayton, standing head and shoulders above its rivals, and it serves a menu that its original patrons would likely recognize.  Even though almost twenty years have passed, I vividly recall entering the restaurant for the first time and being thrilled to see its knotty pine interior lighted with table lamps and filled with banquettes upholstered in red vinyl.  I was quite happy to be seated at a table in the middle of the main room, where a waitress delivered a relish plate (Heaven!) and a basket of hot dinner rolls while taking our drinks order ("Make mine a highball, please!").  After starting with a classic iceberg-lettuce-and-blue-cheese salad dressed with the restaurant's tangy and sweet house dressing, I and my happy dinner companion polished off perfectly cooked, juicy strip steaks served with sour-cream-smothered baked potatoes and the restaurant's delicious signature stewed tomatoes.  I don't recall what I had for dessert, but I do remember that we had to pay for our meal with cash, as the Pine Club didn't accept credit cards.  It still doesn't.  To this day its customers must pay with either cash or sign under a house account.

So I figured out that the reason I stumbled across the Pine Club salad dressing on the Siasconset Market's shelves was because David Hulme likely still owned a house nearby and had talked the owners of the Market in to stocking his product, and they must have obliged because he was probably a regular customer.  And the Pine Club's dressing had to be a good, steady seller there, too, given the Market's clientele.  While not exactly an earth-shattering connection to work my way through, it was a pleasant puzzle nonetheless.

A Pine Club salad dressing four pack

And that's how I came to find a jar of the Pine Club's house salad dressing at the Siasconset Market on Nantucket.  I happily brought one home with me in the L.L. Bean Boat and Tote bag that I use when out shopping, and Boy and I enjoyed it that evening at dinner sitting on our deck overlooking the ocean.  While Reggie is not ordinarily a fan of prepared salad dressings, the Pine Club's is really quite delicious, and he highly recommends it.

You, too, can own the restaurant's salad dressing, along with its steaks and stewed tomatoes, since--as I learned when researching this essay--the Pine Club will be more than happy to ship its justifiably-famous delicacies to you.  I've copied several images of options available for order from the restaurant here in this essay.

Now that I know the Pine Club does mail order deliveries, I'm planning on ordering some steaks from the restaurant when my Nantucket vacation is over.  I figure if I can't find my way to the Pine Club any time soon I'm happy for it to find its way to me.

The Pine Club

1926 Brown Street

Dayton, Ohio 45409

(937) 228-5371

www.thepineclub.com

Please note, Reggie has received nothing from the Pine Club for his recommendation, except the happy memories of his visits there almost two decades ago, for which he is most grateful.

Rest in Peace, Dear Pompey

It is with sadness and gratitude that I write today's post, a tribute to my dear sweet Pompey, who died two weeks ago after fourteen happy, play-filled years.  Pompey's amusing antics graced this blog many times since its inception, and he was a great favorite of many of you, Dear Reader.

Pompey Darling
May 12, 1999 to July 8, 2013

As I reported in an earlier post, we almost lost Pompey a few short months ago.  We were fortunate that we didn't, though, and the time we had with him since then allowed us to cherish him all the more, loving him every moment we were blessed with his company until it came time for us to say our final goodbye.

At the kitchen door at Darlington

Funny, faithful, and loving, Pompey was all that I could have ever hoped for in what I truly believe is "man's best friend."  He certainly was mine.  I did adore him so.

In my arms on Nantucket

I fell in love with Pompey the day we brought him home to Darlington House as a wee puppy, fourteen years ago.  I've been besotted with him ever since.  So good natured, so friendly, such a fond companion Pompey was.  I called him my "little one" and my "little man."  Boy called him his "sweet familiar," a name that always made me smile.

Snug in his bed at Darlington

I knew that when we retrieved Pompey from the animal hospital after his scare in May that we had him on borrowed time.  Although enfeebled by his ordeal, Pompey rallied over the ensuing weeks, and there were times when he almost resembled his old playful, darling self.  A week before he died, though, he started to decline, and it became clear to Boy and me—at first individually and then acknowledged between the two of us—that our sweet fellow was beginning to check out.  The evening before he died Pompey went into a spiral, and no amount of painkiller medicine that I administered to him was able to alleviate his suffering over a long and sleepless night.  Poor, dear little man.

By four in the morning I knew that his time was up.

In a pensive mood

I woke Boy, and the two of us got out of bed with Pompey and carried him downstairs.  We took him out to our screened porch, where the three of us had spent many happy times over the years.  We waited there together as the dawn broke, Pompey lying on the sofa between the two of us, breathing slowly.  A calm settled on us as we sat there quietly, our little family close together for the last time, listening to the sounds of the birds waking and calling their early morning songs.

Happy as a clam with Boy on Nantucket

I telephoned the vet's office as soon as it opened, and arranged to bring Pompey in later that morning.  His end was merciful and swift, and Pompey died with dignity, sheltered in the embrace of those who adored him most, bathed in our tears and love.

I shall miss my dear sweet darling for the rest of my days.

At the Four Seasons in Baltimore

I am truly blessed, Dear Reader, to have had the privilege of Pompey's loving friendship for fourteen years.  I am grateful that Boy and I were able to raise and nurture him with love and care, and that he lived with affection his entire life.  And I am fortunate to have known the devotion of Pompey's faithful companionship for more than a quarter of my own life.  I know I am a better person for it.

On our bed at Darlington

Thank you, dear Pompey, for all the joy, laughter, affection, and fun you brought to me and to those who loved you over the years.  You were a very special, very much loved friend.

May you rest in peace, dear little one.  I will always love you.

Photographs by Boy Fenwick and Reggie Darling

The Simple Pleasure of a Chiming Clock In One's Bed Chamber

As readers of this blog well know, Reggie is a somewhat old-fashioned fellow.  While he appreciates the conveniences and advances of the modern world, when it comes to how he lives his daily life his feet are inclined to be planted in an earlier time of rotary telephones, winding clocks, and monthly calendars.  In England he might be considered a Young Fogey, except that he has long since passed beyond what anyone (except for those of a very advanced age) might consider to still be young.  Sad, Dear Reader, but true.

Reggie's carriage clock
sitting on a chest of drawers at Darlington House

As a boy I had a fascination with carriage clocks, which I first came across in the houses of my little friends and also those of our neighbors.  Developed in France around 1810 by master clock-maker Abraham Louis Breguet (1747-1823), carriage clocks (also known as "officer's clocks," or pendules de voyage) are compact traveling timepieces that were fashionable among well-to-do Europeans and Americans throughout much of the nineteenth century.  Their appeal was both visual (they are pleasing to look at) and practical, as the clocks' mechanisms were cleverly designed to keep ticking (and thus telling accurate time) on bumpy carriage and train rides.

An early French carriage clock, with its original leather carrying case
Image courtesy of the Clock Workshop, Winchester, England

As I grew into adulthood I considered buying myself an antique carriage clock, but refrained from doing so (even though sorely tempted in several instances) because of a (perhaps unfounded) concern that finding someone to skillfully refurbish said clock to modern timekeeping standards would be challenging and expensive.  In other words, I was concerned that the purchase price of the clock would merely be the entry ticket to a long and costly project that might not, in the end, produce the desired result: a well regulated clock that keeps accurate time.

"The London to Bath Coach" by John Charles Maggs (1819-1896)
Image courtesy of Wikimedia

But that all changed a decade or so ago when I was fortunate to find myself on holiday in London.  I had recently received a substantial bonus at the Investment Bank where I work, and—as they say—money was burning a hole in my pocket.  (I note that this was back in the days when Investment Banks still paid handsome bonuses, which is today but a sad (albeit sweet) and (increasingly) distant memory for those of us who remain employed in what is left of that industry.)

"The New Steam Carriage" by George Morton
Image courtesy of Wikimedia

In any event, Reggie was in a shopping mood on that particular trip, so where do you think he made his way to in order to indulge his desire to spend?  Asprey!  Yes, the august English bespoke jeweler, silversmith, leather goods and timepiece purveyor to royals, aristocrats, and moneybags the world over.

I didn't go to Asprey to buy a carriage clock, mind you, but it was there that I serendipitously chanced upon the perfect one to bring home with me to Darlington House, as a souvenir (well, a trophy, really) of our trip to London.  While strolling through Asprey's New Bond Street store I came across a display of handsome clocks in a room that included a modern gilt brass carriage clock made in the traditional form.  I wondered: "Could this be the fulfillment of my desire (finally) to own a carriage clock that actually works?"  After giving the glittering timepiece a look over, and having the saleslady demonstrate its features to me, I decided to buy it.  Yes, it was rather costly, Dear Reader—I was shopping at Asprey, after all.

Asprey's store on New Bond Street in London
Image courtesy of Wikimedia

The carriage clock I acquired that day has stood ever since on a chest of drawers in our bedroom at Darlington House, where it pleases me whenever I see it, or hear it.  For, you see, Dear Reader, my little clock softly and mellifluously chimes the number of hours at every hour and a single note at every half hour, so it is not only a visual reminder of the passing of time, but a gently aural one too.

The clock's works are a marvel
of elegant engineering

I had never before known the pleasure of a chiming clock in one's bedroom, and I have come to be a great appreciator of mine as the years have passed.  There is something quietly reassuring of hearing its chime strike softly as one wakens, either during the night or in the morning, and to learn what time it is.  When one has such a clock in one's bedroom one needn't grope for one's bedside clock to find out the hour, but rather one's clock sweetly and quietly announces it from across the room.

There's no place like home, Dear Reader.

Photographs of Reggie's carriage clock by Boy Fenwick

Reggie's Alden Slip-Ons, and Why He Wears Them

Last week, Dear Reader, I treated myself to a new pair of Alden shell cordovan, full strap slip-on loafers.  Doing so triggered a rush of memories of when I first started my career in finance in New York City, thirty years ago.  It also prompted me to consider the social and—dare I say it—tribal significance of one's chosen footwear, at least in the dwindling world of those of us over the age of forty who are still employed in the city's beleaguered financial services industries.

Reggie's new Alden slip-ons
sitting on a horse hair covered dining chair
at Darlington House on Thanksgiving Day
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

I slipped away from the Investment Bank where I work the day before Thanksgiving for a much-needed wardrobe replenishment shopping trip on Madison Avenue.  My journey started at J. Press and concluded at the Brooks Brothers flagship store.  Imagine that.

The Brooks Brothers flagship store at 346 Madison Avenue,
where Reggie bought his shoes last week
Image courtesy of Brooks Brothers

I came away with half a dozen shirts, two pairs of trousers, a sweater, a jacket, and the shoes shown in the photograph at the outset of this post.  As readers of this blog may recall, the topic of shoes is one that Reggie has returned to more than once or twice.  In previous posts I've written about my affection for Belgian Shoes, white bucks, and classic Gucci loafers.  I've even written about a much-loved pair of shoes that I wore as a toddler and that I still own (but have long since ceased wearing).  Now, Dear Reader, I turn my attention to another favored shoe in my wardrobe—Alden slip-ons.

The original Alden Shoe Company factory
in Middleborough, Massachusetts, 1880s
Image courtesy of same

I bought my first pair of Alden slip-ons the year I graduated from Yale, more than thirty years ago.  They were brown calfskin and had tassels, and I loved them.  I charged them to my father's account at the Brooks Brothers store in Washington, D.C., to wear at my first job in New York at an old line  commercial bank that has long since been absorbed into what is today Bank of America.  I had been accepted into the bank's corporate lending officer training program, and I wanted to be sure to dress the part correctly.  My father graciously underwrote the purchase of my initial post-college work wardrobe, including the Alden slip-ons, several suits, an overcoat, and assorted shirts and ties.

44 Wall Street,
the building where I began my career in finance
Photograph courtesy of ABS Partners

In those days (the early 1980s), young men in New York's bank officer training programs—such as Reggie—wore Alden (or similar) slip-on tassel loafers to the office.  While older bankers wore conservative lace-up oxfords, by the time I appeared on the scene most of the younger bankers had adopted tassel loafers as their preferred shoe.  What I didn't realize before I started at the bank, though, was that one was expected to wear only black tassel loafers.  I was dismayed to learn on my first day that I had blown my pre-employment shoe allowance on brown shoes, and that all the other young men in the training program were wearing black shoes.

Reggie mistakenly wore Alden brown tassel slip-ons
to his first day at the bank, all those years ago
Image courtesy of Harrison Limited

In those days, men didn't wear brown shoes on Wall Street (yes, the bank I worked in was actually located on that famous financial thoroughfare), but only black shoes.  Brown shoes were considered "un-bankerly" (a withering criticism), and only appropriate for weekend wear.  My father, who was a lawyer and regularly wore brown shoes to his office (where they were perfectly acceptable), thought it "poppycock" (a word he used with some frequency in my presence) that I felt uncomfortable wearing brown shoes to my office, instead of black ones.  Clearly, he didn't understand the cultural and sartorial differences between a bank and a law firm.

The Brooks Brothers store at One Liberty Plaza,
where Reggie bought his first pair of black Alden tassel slip-ons

Needless to say, once I received my first paycheck I high-tailed it over to the Brooks Brothers on Liberty Plaza and bought myself a pair of Alden slip-on tassel loafers in the desired and approved black.  My brown tassel loafers got pushed to the back of my closet, and didn't get much wear thereafter, except on weekends.  I held on to them for many years, though, stored in their original box.  I gave them away ten or so years ago, since by then I was no longer able to wear them, as my feet had grown in my forties and the shoes no longer fit.  It was a bittersweet moment when I finally decided to donate them to charity, as their significance still resonated with me.

Reggie's own well-worn
black Alden tassel slip-ons
sitting on a chair at Darlington House
Photograph by Reggie Darling

By then, though, I had pretty much ceased wearing Alden tassel loafers, having moved on to tassel-free Alden slip-ons in my later thirties.  For those of my readers who may not be familiar with Alden slip-ons, be they tasseled or not, they are a mainstay of a certain group of grown men who work in the lofty office towers of Manhattan.  They are a particular favorite of those of us employed in the worlds of finance, be it investment banking, private equity, or commercial banking.  Most of the investment bankers over the age of forty where I work have at least one or two pairs in regular rotation.  Alden slip-ons are probably the most popular shoe seen on such men walking the halls in the Investment Bank where I work, followed closely by Gucci loafers.  Shoes worn by the younger men at my firm tend to be sleeker, and are usually Italian.  I suspect that Alden slip-ons are to them what lace-up oxfords were to my generation when I started out in banking—the favored shoe of the older generation.

Wall Street today,
the old Manufacturer's Hanover Trust on the right,
US Trust beyond, and Trinity Church in the distance
Photography courtesy of Picasa

When I first started my career in finance, in 1980, those of us in the training program at the bank were handed a sheet of paper on the first day outlining what clothes we were expected to wear, and what clothes we were not to wear.  I wish I still had it, Dear Reader, as I would dearly love to post it here.  However, I don't, so I can't.

A Brooks Brothers window display, ca. 1960s
Photograph courtesy of Esquire

I can summarize it, though, for you.  We were expected to wear suits of a conservative cut in "somber" colors (gray or navy) every day of the week (no Casual Fridays back then).  Shirts were to be either white (preferred) or light blue.  Ties (mandatory) were to be a discreet foulard, club, or rep stripe.  Shoes were to be black, although dark cordovan was acceptable.  Should we need to come into the office on weekends (a regular occurrence, I might add), we were expected to wear a jacket and a tie, and tailored trousers such as gray flannels (winter) or khakis (summer).  No blue jeans or sneakers were allowed under any circumstances.  Ever.

J. Press was (and remains) Reggie's
"go-to" source for smart sport jackets
Photograph courtesy of LIFE Images

As all of us are well aware, these days clothing restrictions have loosened considerably.  At the Investment Bank where I work, suits and ties are no longer required, unless one is meeting with clients.  On an average day I'd say half the men do wear suits, and the rest are in blazers and gray flannels, or some variant.  At least half are tieless, regardless of whether they are wearing suits or not.  Most of us keep several ties in the office should we unexpectedly need one.  While black is still the preferred shoe color, brown is now entirely acceptable.  Long gone are the days when a man would be sent home to change his shirt if he had the audacity to show up at the office wearing one in any color other than white or blue.

The approved shirt as seen in a Brooks Brothers
catalogue from the 1980s.  White or blue.  Only.
Image courtesy of the Trad

So, Dear Reader, you may ask: What is it about Alden slip-ons that resonates with me?  Why have I kept buying them for the past thirty years?  Why did I buy yet another pair last week?

The same shoe Reggie bought, except in calfskin
Photograph courtesy of Harrison Limited

I like the way they look, Dear Reader, and they are one of the favored shoes of the men of my profession and background.  They are flattering to a grown man's foot, they have an easy elegance to them, and they are popular with the well-dressed Ivy League-educated men I have coexisted with my entire adult life.  In other words, they are one of the shoes of the Tribe.  I've bought more than a dozen pairs over the years, both with and without tassels, and I think they look just as good worn sockless with khakis on a summer weekend afternoon as they do wearing Pantherellas and a suit to one's office on Park Avenue during the week, as I do.  I bought last week's new pair to replace an identical pair that had become worn beyond redemption and that could no longer support yet another reconditioning.

The box my new shoes came home in . . .

Photograph by Boy Fenwick

At $650 a pair, Brooks Brothers' Alden cordovan slip-ons are not inexpensive.  However, they are well worth the cost, I believe, because they are beautifully made.  I like the fact that they are also made here in the United States by one of the few remaining American shoe manufacturers.  When the shoes are well cared for (which, in Reggie's book, includes the use of properly fitted wood shoe trees), they last for many years, and Alden does a terrific job of reconditioning its shoes if asked (they have a handy mail-order business for doing so).

The cover of an Alden catalogue
Image courtesy of same

And for all of these reasons, Dear Reader, Alden's shell cordovan, full strap slip-ons will always be part of Reggie's shoe wardrobe.

Please note:  Reggie has not received, nor does he expect to receive, anything in return for this post.  He is posting it solely in the interest of entertaining his readers, which is why he writes this blog in the first place.