My husband retired from the electric co-op. His closet never got the word. Then I stood behind Virgil in the barbecue line.
My husband retired from the electric co-op. His closet never got the word. Then I stood behind Virgil in the barbecue line.
Six things I have noticed since the co-op’s annual meeting this past October, from a woman who carried the mail on a county route for 28 years and has opinions about what comes back in the box.
Connie Mayfield · Claremore, Oklahoma · 5 min read
I am 66 and I carried the mail on a county route for 28 years, so I am not one for putting things on Facebook, and I am surely not one for writing to stores. I live on two acres outside Claremore, Oklahoma, with my husband Dale and an old basset hound named Deputy. Dale climbed poles for the electric co-op his whole working life. Then he retired. His clothes did not.
The two I am writing about are the Raymond and the Keith, from Iris and Nora, a small boutique down in Austin. The Raymond is a plain navy zip-up jacket with a stand collar. The Keith is a quarter-zip sweater, cream in the body with tan sleeves. They are men’s things, and I bought them for Dale. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, as long as I could tell it the way it happened.
Every October the co-op holds its annual meeting out at the fairgrounds. Barbecue, a door prize drawing, bucket truck rides for the kids. Dale goes every year to see his old crew and tell the same three stories. This year I ended up in the barbecue line behind Arvella, who was on my route for twenty-some years, out past Oologah. Her husband Virgil was a step ahead of her. I have seen Virgil in the same brown barn coat in every kind of weather that county has. Not that day. He had on a navy jacket, zipped about halfway, with a cream and tan sweater showing at the collar. He looked like a man who had been invited somewhere on purpose. I told Arvella so. She said, “Took me two years.” Then she told me where she got them. Read on.
Virgil in the barbecue line. Arvella said I could use it if I left his face off. He agreed, which for Virgil is a speech.
Here is what I had been looking at across the breakfast table. Men Dale’s age seem to get dressed out of two piles. The company pile, work coats and fleece and caps the co-op handed out every Christmas for thirty years, the co-op’s name on every chest. And the church pile, one good sport coat that comes out for funerals. Nothing in between. So Dale wore the work coat to the feed store, the work coat to the grandsons’ football games, and the work coat to our anniversary supper in Tulsa.
I will tell you something from the route, and it is only my opinion. I carried a lot of men’s sweaters out to a lot of mailboxes, and I carried a good many of them back. The wife orders it. The husband tries it on once in the kitchen and says it is fine, which means it is going back. I figured that is where these were headed too.
He was retired from the co-op. Nobody had told his closet.
The day they came. I laid them out on the bed before Dale got in from the barn, so he could not turn them down in the box.
I ordered both that night at the kitchen table. Dale has worn them through the first cold snaps of the fall, and I have been watching, because watching is most of what a mail carrier does. It comes down to six things, and I will give them to you plainly.
A collar that stands up neat, with one snap
The Raymond has a stand collar with a small tab and one snap at the front that holds it in place. That is the whole of the decoration. No hood flopping around, no patch on the chest with somebody else’s name on it. On a man who has worn a logo for thirty years, a plain collar does a lot of work. Dale looks like Dale, just tidier.
On the peg by the back door, next to the coat it replaced. The old one is not going anywhere. It just does not go to church.
No writing on it anywhere. My husband said that was the first thing he liked.
Jolene W., PryorA full zip and two zip pockets for his keys
The zipper runs the whole way down, so it is on and off in a second, which matters to a man who will not stand still in a doorway. There are two pockets low at the front, one on each side, and they zip. His truck keys go in one and his pocketknife goes in the other, and nothing has fallen out in the truck yet. I checked under the seat.
Dale walking down for the mail. After 28 years of filling other people’s boxes, I let him get ours.
He keeps his keys in the zip pocket and quit asking me where they are. That alone was worth it.
Darla S., ChelseaA light jacket, and I will not tell you it is more
This is a thin, light jacket, made to go over a shirt or a light sweater. It is not his ice storm coat, and I will not pretend it is. It is the one for the in-between days, and in Oklahoma that is half of them. The cuffs and the hem are ribbed, and they have held their shape on him so far, which is more than I can say for the co-op fleece.
Just right for running to town. He does not sweat through it by noon like the big coat.
Lorene B., VinitaThe Keith puts some color on him without any fuss
The Keith is two tone, a cream body with tan sleeves. The sleeves run in a long line right up to the collar, so there is a clean line across the shoulder. It is sporty without trying to be young. Dale has worn gray and brown for as long as I have known him, and I was not sure he would put on anything cream. He did. He even looked in the hall mirror on the way out, which I have not seen him do since our wedding.
Folded on the kitchen table, where everything in this house ends up.
Got the gray and navy one for my husband. Our daughter asked who dressed him.
Bonnie K., CoffeyvilleA quarter zip he can wear high or open
The Keith has a stand collar and a short zipper at the neck. Zip it up when the wind comes off the pasture, pull it open when the heater in the truck finally catches up. The cuffs and the hem are ribbed and sit where they should. It is cut on the slim side, so I went by the chart and not by the size on his old coat, and I would tell you to do the same.
Dale and Deputy on the porch, both of them retired, only one of them dressed for it.
I measured him like the chart said and it fit the first time. No trip back to the post office.
Wanda J., BentonvilleWear them together, the way Virgil did
The Keith goes under the Raymond, zipped about halfway, and that is the whole outfit. Jeans or work pants underneath, his same old boots. The Raymond also comes in black, olive and cream, in sizes M to 5XL. The Keith comes in light gray and charcoal, gray and navy, and beige and green, in sizes S to 2XL. There are seventeen men’s tops in this collection altogether. Our son Travis is getting the gray and navy Keith for Christmas, so if you know Travis, keep it to yourself.
The first Sunday Dale wore them, my friend Bev looked him up and down in the church parking lot and said, “Dale, did you get a new job?” Dale said no. But he stood up a little straighter saying it.
I bought both to go together and he wears them as a pair. Easiest thing I ever bought that man.
Norma Jean T., NeoshoThe Raymond and the Keith, against what he was wearing
You can let him keep wearing the company coat, like I did for years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
The co-op’s name on every chest
One heavy coat for every kind of weather
Nothing between the barn and a funeral
Gray and brown, year in and year out
Looks like he is on call for the next ice storm
A plain stand collar with one snap
A light layer for the in-between days
A full zip and two zip pockets
Cream and tan with some color in it
Bev asked if he got a new job
About the price
The Raymond is $79.95. It was $160.00. The Keith is $49.95. It was $100.00. Prices like that make me suspicious. I spent 28 years handing people boxes, and you learn a lot about a company from which boxes come back the other way. So I read the whole page looking for the catch, and I have not found one. They came with free shipping, they looked like the pictures, and neither one has gone back.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these come in small runs and the good colors and sizes do not stay in stock long. Their words, not mine.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots. The same things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If the man in your house retired and his clothes never got the word, this is where I would start. Take a look before this run sells through, because once it is gone, it is gone. And if you see Virgil at the co-op meeting next year, tell him Connie said he looks sharp. He will not say anything back. That is just Virgil.
Connie
THE RAYMOND & THE KEITH
The Keith: $100.00 $49.95
- Raymond: navy zip jacket with a stand collar and snap tab
- Full zip and two front pockets
- A light layer over a shirt or light sweater
- Keith: two tone quarter-zip sweater
- Raglan sleeves, ribbed cuffs and hem
- Raymond M to 5XL, Keith S to 2XL
- Seventeen men’s tops in the collection
- Free shipping
Sale on now, half off. Once this run is gone, it is gone.