Why Be Shy?

How I Came to Stop Worrying and Love the Union Suit

   By Ronald Payne, Guest Contributor

I grew up on a Dairy Farm in northern Virginia during the 1950s and like other boys who lived on a farm I was expected to do at least some farm chores. I was excused from helping with the milking (I was scared of the cows that were so much bigger than I was) but other chores like gathering eggs, feeding livestock and driving a tractor during haymaking season were a part of my growing up. This necessitated wearing work clothes which I hated. I didn’t want any part of a farm identity (I wanted to be a sophisticated city kid). I was afraid I’d be seen in farm work clothes by other kids.  When winter came around I drew the line on wearing long underwear.  My Dad wore the two piece variety, but I thought “long johns” were just too embarrassing. If I had to be outside in snowy cold weather, I’d happily wear coats and sweaters, but no way I’d ever wear “long johns”. 

Even worse than the two piece variety in my eyes were union suits. I saw a TV episode of “Restless Gun” in which John Payne was forced to strip down to his union suit and march back into town while everyone laughed. I couldn’t imagine anything more humiliating. The local clothing store had union suits so I knew some people must wear them, but I certainly wasn’t going to be one of them!

When I went to High School I was required to take gym class (which I hated) and for the first time I saw guys my age wearing union suits in the locker room. And these guys were popular athletes!  Girls liked them and other guys looked up to them.  Sure, these guys would kid each other about their “hillbilly drawers”, but they seemed to enjoy laughing at themselves and didn’t show the least embarrassment about being seen wearing union suits in winter. I guess that was when I began to change my attitude about long underwear, especially union suits. I kind of wanted to be like those guys who could be relaxed and confident even while wearing a union suit. In fact I realized that these guys had created a bond by kidding each other about wearing “hillbilly long johns”. I developed a secret wish to wear a union suit so I could be like those other guys and join in with kidding and being kidded about “farm boy” long johns.

The problem was--I’d made such a big deal about refusing to wear any sort of long underwear that I couldn’t bring myself to admit to my parents that I now wanted to wear long johns. Even if I bought a union suit on the sly, I knew that living in a small town word might get back to my parents. Also I was convinced that if I took a union suit to the store check out, the lady who would ring it up would probably imagine what I’d looked like wearing it!  

In ‘67 I went to college at William and Mary. The college laundry provided a list with check boxes for the student to tick-off what items were in the laundry bag. Guess what!  Right under “Undershirts” and “Underpants” was “Union Suits”. So some college men must wear union suits!

Winter of my freshman year I finally got my first union suit. Boy, did I enjoy the feel of it under my clothes at football games! Or when walking around Williamsburg on a snowy Sunday. I always had a smile when I checked the “Union Suit” box on my laundry list.

I was a Theater major and that Spring I got a part in an original student musical.   It was about a small town rube from the nearby town of Toano who gets lost in the “big city” of Williamsburg. There he runs across the newly constructed college computer that was programed with the personality of woman. The computer falls in love with the rube and makes him a senior majoring in Home Economics.There was a scene in which my character moves into his dorm room that he shares with a hippie and a jock. While preparing for bed he undresses to reveal –yes—that he’s wearing a union suit. So in this play, for the first time I was seen in a union suit.   And as the hippie character starts to sing a made-up folk song, my character starts to dance to it—a Charleston!  There I was doing a Charleston…on stage…in a union suit…in front of hundreds of my fellow students…three nights in a row…and even in front of my parents who came down to see their son starring in a college show.  I still remember hearing the laughter rolling across the theater.  But it wasn’t derisive laughter. It was the kind of laughter that showed that the audience liked me.  And I got a big round of applause at the end of the number.  

To top it all off—in that year’s college Year Book there was a picture of me…in the show…in my union suit.

That proved to be my inoculation against any sense of embarrassment or shame about wearing a union suit. People who saw the show somehow assumed it was my own union suit that I was wearing (it wasn’t--it belonged to a fellow cast member). But after that I joined the ranks of guys for whom a union suit was a normal part of their winter wardrobe.

 And that is how I came to stop worrying and love the Union Suit!

                                       ....Ronald Payne 

What better way to kick off another Union Suit Wearing Season than this account from my long underwear pal. Ron enjoys the warmth, comfort and look of union suits nearly as much as I. My fascination with our one-piece wonder just happened to begin about 10 years earlier than he, when I was a boy. 

Here's a much younger Ron, on stage, in his union suit. Photos taken from his William and Mary College yearbook. I'm willing to wager that none of us, including me, have danced the Charleston in long underwear, on stage, in front of hundreds audience members. Come to think of it, I haven't danced in front of any crowd in my union suit. Kudo's to Ron!

Ron's first guest contributions to my Union Suit Fan blog was November 14, 2019 in his story titled "A Thespian Union Suit Fan: Growing Up, Part I and An Innocent Rube, Part II."  You can still find these very entertaining postings herein...just scroll down to the aforementioned date in 2019. You'll enjoy his chronical.

Thanks, Ron... Chris