When I first met Harold he had an amazing suit. In the context of the 70's it wasn't as bad as it looks today, but it was still out there. This was a custom suit he'd had made just before leaving his mission. He'd picked the fabric from a little swatch which probably didn't look too bad. Harold was proud of the suit and wore it home from his mission. I hear it caused some stir at his airport homecoming. Not exactly what you expect your missionary to look like. This was the end of June 1976. We started dating in January 1977 and Harold was still wearing the suit. It was all he had. His sibblings had confiscated most of his clothing while he was away on his mission so his wardrobe was mostly from Deseret Industries. Let it be known that his personality more than overcame the wardrobe challenges. We picked out a new suit before our engagement photo and began the process of retiring the missionary suit . . . but the thing seems to have a life of it's own. It has shown up reincarnated over the years as most of the family have worn it for some costume event. I've even worn it, dressing up one Halloween . . . as Harold.
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I think their may be photos of others in the family wearing the suit. Let me know and I will add them.
well as for dads suit. i have a couple memorys of that. the one that sticks out the most would have to be of a video of dad when he was the bishop of the meadowood ward. he and his councelors, bro barrows and bro fields crashed a relief society mother daughter sleepover type activity. mom was wearing somthing embarrising and when dad came in in his suit and started to ask who was sucking all the love in the room, naturally it as mom who was the culprit. he then began to sing "you got the lovin feeling" to her with his councelors accompanying him. in the end, daad had a blast and mom was tottlay embarresed. good times.
I have always liked the suit. I remember pouring through the bolts and bolts of fabric at the taylors in downtown Sao Paulo trying to decide the perfect cloth to have a suit done. In brazil, the the dress is a lot more colorful than here. I made sure to have nice lapels, a classy belt in the back, and a coin pocket in the front. My other suits were completly wornn out so I left the last of them in a hotel room in Cusco Peru on the way home. I did not think much about the suit but came home and I suppose there were a few suprised family members. I could ware the suit to church, to Coughlin & Co a few times, and other places.
I have used the suit as an object lesson for youth talks, To sign to Sharon at a Combined Young Womens activity for the Meadowood Ward, and to go trick or treating with the kids.
The last time I wore it was in my mid 40's as I finally had a weight shift that could not quite ware it anymore. It will be listed in my last will and testiment as one of my prized possessions.
I remember wearing this suit once. It was a Halloween in my junior or senior year. I think some of my friends and I decided to go trick or treating down our street. I used the suit and some of mom's makeup to give myself some rockin' sideburns and maybe a little escaping chest hair (I was not as endowed as other members of the family in this area). We trick or treated a few houses on the street and found one that gave out king sized candy bars. I know there are pictures somewhere but I have not been able find them.
I wore the suite for a new years party with David Bond, Aaron Moss and Megan one year. We went over to Ashlee Carter's house I think. I later used the picture from that party in a BYU film class project. I'm pretty sure dad wore the suit when he, Will Barrows and one of his councilors sang, That loving feeling, to mom at a ward activity.
I was there when the suit first came off of the airplane late at night. We were waiting to greet the missionary brother and son that we hadn't seen for years. We kept looking for a "missionary" but couldn't see one. We were getting to the end of the passengers and were just a little bit concerned. Then we saw "The Suit" coming towards us and couldn't understand how our missionary could be surrounded by that! After the initial shock we gladly welcomed both suit and missionary home.
For a long time I never realized why everyone made fun of dad's suit. It was the coolest item of clothing in the house. Obviously Kaylene and I really liked it. It made us think of Sherlock Holmes and inspired a quest to discover who had pilched the missing snickers bars we got from the cannery for some activity. We never did find out for sure, but I am pretty sure dad ate them. Since then, the suit has been the backbone of several costumes.
I have always been one for dressing up, so dad's suit deemed destined to become one of my costumes once i grew big enough to wear it. One afternoon Becca and i searched through dad's closet for a wardrobe suitable to play Sherlock Homes. And then we saw it. The ultimate suit. The jacket, along with dad's big hats sealed the deal for us. We were officially spies out to save the world.
When Dad was in college, he had his eyes set on a young hottie named Sharon Reed. But she didn’t really even notice him. She was too busy turning down all the other boys. He needed to figure out a way to impress her. Of course when you’re trying to impress a girl, you have to impress her with style. But it’s a challenge when all of your clothes come from DI. I mean, you can sort through all they have and hope that luck is on your side, but it isn’t easy. And it seemed as though luck was not on dad’s side. He couldn’t find anything nice to impress the ladies. Girls would hardly even look him. His Abercrombie friends all abandoned him of course. He was at a loss.
Until… one day, when he was scrimmaging through all of the dirty old clothes at DI, trying to find something presentable, instead he found a dusty old lamp. He thought it might have said, “you have no style” but as he took a closer look and rubbed off the dust a little, he realized it said, “where all your dreams come true.”
He rubbed it harder and… you guessed it… out popped his magical fairy Godfather to grant him 3 wishes. The genie was busy. But if you’ve seen Aladdin, you know that there are limitations to wishes. He couldn’t just wish for Sharon to fall in love with him. No… he needed something better. He needed her to notice him… in style.
“Godfather, I need you to turn me into one hot stud!” he said.
“Harold, you have come to the right Godfather! I have just the thing for you!” And with that, immediately his clothes changed into a new suit. The most glorious suit anyone had ever seen.
Until then, girls wouldn’t even notice him. But after he put on the magical suit, girls couldn’t keep their hands off of him. As he tried to make his way to Sharon’s house, his suit became a chick magnet. Literally… girls were hanging on to him. He didn’t know what to do. What would Sharon think?
“Godfather, I need you to make this suit only attractive to the one I love.”
“Harold, you got it!” and with that, the girls fell off and walked away.
“Harold, is that you?” he heard a soft sweet voice ask. “You look… you look fantastic!” said Sharon.
And… the rest is history. They were married a few months later and they lived happily ever after. Oh yeah… and the third wish he made was for the suit to have the same effect for his children as it did for him.
And yes, I have to admit, this the real reason I am married to your son. I mean, look at that picture of him in his suit. How could I resist?
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