Every time I attend or present at an event like Thunder or BR or TESFest, etc., I'm always given an event pin. Now it's nice to have them, but when I get home I toss them into the nearest drawer of convenience. So somewhere in wherever I'm living or perhaps in storage I have all these pins and/or patches, but I really don't wear them. See, I come from a time when yes, some guys had patches on their leather vests, but that was only because they were a member of some motorcycle club. A lot of the rest of us (hets mostly) didn't even have vests let alone patches. (Actually, there was this one guy, but then he came dressed as a kinky Boy Scout for a Halloween party.) If we did, we'd be looked at askanced as "...oy vey, a new guy trying to impress."
Today there are a whole bunch of worthy and august title contests where patches on vests are hard won and a symbol of pride and a symbol of someone designated to do something important for the promotion of the community and/or fundraising. I'm not going to deny them their rightfully won achievements. They've earned that patch and the right to put it on their vest.
What I have to smile and silently giggle at are those folk dressed in their fetish leathers with all their event pins showing to the point where it looks like some demented SCA type wearing button armour and ready to battle ...the Knights Who Say 'Neat'. And by the knowing smiles I see on the faces of my contemporaries, I guess I'm not alone in that.
Now I recognize that maybe pins and patches hold a more significant meaning for TNG'rs and their peers. I guess I'll just have to say that this is one of the mutually respectful differences between my generation and the TNG'rs. Frankly, my pins and patches are in my memories--such as remembering the pride I felt being part of the 60,000+, nation-wide, leather contingent in the 300,000+ "Gay March on Washington" in the 1980's and during that, watching a mounted DC cop blush as we recognized his epiphany that he was 'one of us'.
Today there are a whole bunch of worthy and august title contests where patches on vests are hard won and a symbol of pride and a symbol of someone designated to do something important for the promotion of the community and/or fundraising. I'm not going to deny them their rightfully won achievements. They've earned that patch and the right to put it on their vest.
What I have to smile and silently giggle at are those folk dressed in their fetish leathers with all their event pins showing to the point where it looks like some demented SCA type wearing button armour and ready to battle ...the Knights Who Say 'Neat'. And by the knowing smiles I see on the faces of my contemporaries, I guess I'm not alone in that.
Now I recognize that maybe pins and patches hold a more significant meaning for TNG'rs and their peers. I guess I'll just have to say that this is one of the mutually respectful differences between my generation and the TNG'rs. Frankly, my pins and patches are in my memories--such as remembering the pride I felt being part of the 60,000+, nation-wide, leather contingent in the 300,000+ "Gay March on Washington" in the 1980's and during that, watching a mounted DC cop blush as we recognized his epiphany that he was 'one of us'.
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