Things you didn’t know I invented

If I were the subject of a Wikipedia page, I would hope it would list three important contributions I have made to modern culture.  I invented the blitz in football, the musical genre folk rock and, in the world of fashion, wash and wear clothing.  At least, as far as I know I did. 

Trying to gasp football’s nuances

I began my very brief interscholastic football career in 1959 as a 7^th grader.  The coach put me at linebacker, and I played every defensive down of every game that season. 

The instructions I got on how to play the position and feedback on how I did were limited.  At best.  I did know that linebackers stood up, unlike linemen.  I did understand that the point of defense was to keep the other team from advancing the ball.  I deduced that I should go all out to stuff any attempted advancement as quickly as possible.

So, I did my best to get directly to the ball the moment it was snapped.  I had never heard the word “blitz,” but that’s what I did.  On every single play the whole season.  In later years, I began to hear about blitzing as I followed college and pro football.  I recognized the technique.

Sometimes we switched from a five- to a seven-man line, in which case I dropped into a lineman’s stance.   I still went straight for the ball, but I guess that was not a blitz since I was crouched instead of standing. 

Was louder better?

My first guitar was a Silvertone, a brand produced and sold by Sears for not-a-lot-of-money.  It was your basic acoustic six-string.  As I learned to play and began doing some performing, I wished I could graduate to an electric guitar.  

My playing and singing at that time fell into the folk music category, including a lot of traditional tunes and maybe even more Kingston Trio numbers. 

Eventually, I was able to get an electric guitar.  I continued playing and singing the same songs.  There you had it.  Folk music accompanied on a rock instrument, a few years before Dylan showed up at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric guitar. 

Curating my clothes

Then I invented wash and wear.  Not permanent press.  Wash. And. Wear. 

As I began college, I wore to class clothes we called “Ivy League” style (which later became known as “preppy”), the pants and shirts being clean and pressed.  After classes, I went back to my dorm room, changed and carefully hung the good clothes in the closet.  With such limited wear, each shirt and pair of slacks came up in the rotation a few times in between appropriately spaced trips to the cleaners.   

That was OK for a time.  But was it worth the time (multiple clothing changes each day) and money (cleaners’ fees) to look preppy in class?  I decided it wasn’t.  Following my new plan, I just washed everything, dried it and then wore it.