I've said it before and I'll say it again: Apart from a wedding band
(if they're married) and a watch, men should not wear jewelry. (The
dude above looks cool, tho, I gotta admit.)
USA Today's Craig Wilson agrees.
"My brother visited last week. I hadn't seen him in more than a year,
so it was fun to catch up.
We were talking about his kids, his wife, his barn, when something
distracted me. Something on his finger.
What was it, I wondered? It was too large to be a ring.
Then I realized that was exactly what it was. Like those Super Bowl
rings, only larger if that's possible, and obviously, it is. He
admitted that my sister-in-law thinks it's gaudy. Smart cookie.
Gary is the women's track coach at the University of Minnesota. His
team won the Big Ten championship last year, and the ring was part of
the celebration. He explained all this when I asked him where he came
upon such a thing.
It's a chunk of gold bearing a huge maroon stone upon which the
squatty Minnesota "M" is spread.
I suspect he could easily lay anyone low with just one swing of the
ring hand, although I'm not sure he could actually lift his hand to
cheek level.
Who knew he, of all people, would be in the company of rapper Lil Jon,
who just set a Guinness World Record for wearing the world's largest
diamond pendant (5.1 pounds/73 carats)?
My brother, the jock, wears bling.
I thought of our dad when Gary was flashing his new accessory. Dad
came from a time and place when men wore only two pieces of jewelry: a
watch and a wedding band.
Rings as large as oranges existed only on society ladies at dinner
parties back then, and dozens of chains around the neck were reserved
for weirdos or certain guys from New Jersey.
As for earrings on men, well, that wasn't talked about in polite
company.
I'll confess I strayed into the world of bling once, too, but
retreated quickly, thanks to my friend Pat.
She's the kind of friend who never misses an opportunity to tell
another friend he's doing something stupid. As irritating as that can
be, she has been my lifesaver more than once.
My bling? A thin gold chain bought in the early '80s.
I don't know why I thought it would work on me, but I put it on and
headed out.
Pat laughed so long and so loud, I would suspect she was still
laughing, except for the fact I've seen her since, and she has finally
pulled herself together. I never wore it again.
By today's standards, and my brother's, my gold chain seems a very
timid step on the fashion runway these days. Bling with a small b.
Anything goes now. More is more. Just the other day, I read in The New
York Times about "bling bang" -- men wearing tons of jewelry,
everything from ethnic beads to bones to tarnished pendants.
Gaudy championship rings, too, I might add.
And why are guys wearing such glitz? The only answer the Times could
come up with was "Why not?"
One of the men featured in the article even restrung 109 of his late
mother's pearls onto a gold-link chain he wears below his waist, kind
of like an overextended rosary.
I could be wrong, but if I know anything about mothers, I'm pretty
sure that's not what she had in mind for the family pearls."
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