Tuff skins By Wade

The first day of school was always a good day we got to wear one of the two pair of jeans we would get each year. Mom would take us to a store across the street from Provo high called Christiensens. Christiensens didn't have a store front, you had to drive around the building to the back and follow a path, down the stairs to a door that opened into a warehouse with racks of clothes randomly placed, and 1 cash register. The store was a little better than DI because the stuff was new... but irregular. mom wouldn't let us by irregular levi's or wrangler, we bought Tuff skins. Tuff skins were not the soft cotton jeans we have today they were made of a blue canvas that was stiff and rough. On the back side of each knee there was a reinforcement that extended from mid thigh to mid shin, the reinforcement out line was easily seen from the out side, giving Tuff Skins their very own special look. When buying we would try to find what was irregular about the jeans, some would have a hole in the pocket, a pocket sewn shut or a back pocket that didn't exactly line up with the other one. We would take the 2 best in our size.

About mid year we would wear through the thick canvas and the reinforcement on the knees. The hole would get bigger and bigger, mom would take an iron on patch to hold it but soon it would fall off, the tear would start again, and our pants would be ripped from seam to seam. Mom would then get out a scrap piece of jean material and sew the knee back together. the seam was always zig zag and if you were lucky the thread and backing material would match. I remember many times getting a red patch and red thread in blue pants or a black patch with green thread. Mom would then zig zag back and forth so that even if the bottom cloth did not match it wouldn't matter because it was over whelmed with the stitching on top . After the sew job our pants never seemed to hang the same, the front would be a little higher than the back giving off the distinct impression they were floods. When I was young I used to hate my jeans after the patch job but now I realize it just made my decisions to wear something different, a little easier.