PresMuffley wrote:I can't help but wonder what was expected by having a 'dress like a punker' day, and how you actually showed up, but perhaps you're saving it for your memoir.
Apparently to Flagstaff junior high kids in 1981 it meant you wore your least preppy plaid bits or something neon or you flipped up the collar on your Miller's Outpost oxford shirt because that somehow was "punk" and then you ratted your hair a bit.
Being from California and having an older brother who was a punk, I had a slightly more accurate impression of what punk was, or at least surf punk, but not by much and I had none of the classic grown up punk looking gear aside from a couple of band tees -- no docs, no leather spiked bits, nothing really cool or anything in my wardrobe at all. Really to be fair to the locals in Flagstaff, we were all pretty clueless, me included. I mean, I was a dorky honor student up to that point so my concept of punk probably wasn't all that more evolved. My brother was 10 years older than me and still lived in California so I couldn't ask him for help but I used the day as a way to transform myself. It was a turning point for me style wise.
I wore my circle jerks tee and rolled up a faded pair of jeans that I then defaced with razor cuts and made anarchy symbols on with lip liner and wrote band names all over them in sharpie. I was sent home because the shirt was deemed inappropriate by the school and I had "distracting attire" for school. I think it was just the band's name that caused the issue, but maybe the graphics on the shirt were offensive too? I thought it was just a guy dressed up like a punk though... It might have been the circle jerks tee but it could also have been the hair which I'd liberty spiked and dyed. My friend Mick and I had bleached and shaved most of our hair and dyed it with kool-aid the night before.
I remember that we showed up the next day for "silly hat day" or whatever it was and still had red, blue and purple hair and both of us got a few weird looks. But it wasn't until I came back on the next Monday with my hair still spiked and colorful that I was called to the principals office and told "it's not spirit week anymore -- wash that out!". As I recall Mick didn't get called in for his hair -- only me, which at the time I found really sexist. My mom was cool though and went to bat for me with the principal by explaining that it was semi-permanent and would take months to fully wash out and by pointing out that nowhere in the school rules did it say I could not dye my hair.
In the end I agreed not to style it in spikes after that and the administration backed off of me about it, so since no one bugged me about it I continued to dye it and my style began to change in all areas from dweeb to something more freakish. I guess it was trend setting because at the start of the next year there were several people with unnatural colored hair and then the school made a rule saying it had to be naturally occurring, so I dyed mine black after that and that's probably how I ended up goth instead of a punk or a mod in high school...well that and Siouxsie.