Mount Fuji, overlooking Lake Kawaguchi, rises 12,388 feet on the Japanese island of Honshu. Considered sacred since ancient times, each summer, thousands of Japanese make a pilgrimage to the top.

No Finer Gift Than Khakis But Squid
– writes Andy Moat

A short story. None more true. My girlfriend and I bussed from simmering Osaka (98 degrees, incomparable Asian humidity) to massive Mt. Fuji. Not a world beater at 12,388 feet, Fuji, however, burst from unlikely lowlands – a blasted volcanic ash cone. I’ll hint that the weather gets funky.

We unloaded at Level 5, halfway up, and whoa, it’s 60 drizzling degrees. Hmmm. We were sporting Bills shorts and Patagonia shells, both savvy decisions in the a.m., but suddenly we’re badly underprepared.

The concessions hut provides Saran Wrap slickers, Fuji-san T-shirts (polyester aplenty) and several film rolls for my baby, my dear 1982 Canon AE1-P, Mom’s greatest-ever Christmas gift. Off we go before midnight, due to summit around 5 a.m. and catch the wildly photographed sunrise. Gritty ash makes walking unsure, and half the climb is up slick igneous rock draped with chains for tugging. Tough stuff, and worse, the slope is perfectly unrelenting. There are no crests, just UP. At 2-ish, 2,000 meters plus, the rain hardens to sleet. Our chains freeze. We fall. Twice. Sleet ups to hailstones. My friend (all Japanese woman packed into 5 foot 2) refuses to stop. We’ve no choice one hour later. There’s a heavy snowfall on top (August, mind you) and Fuji-san is officially closed. Herded into a tiny teahouse at 3,000 meters (family owned for generations) we stoop, shivering and wet around burning barrels. Morning saunters in, insistently nasty. We very grumpily give up, shouting unpublishable epithets and giving the mountain the finger to warm our downward march.

Four hours later we are back at the mid-level bus station. Get our asses back to Osaka’s heat and our bath, PLEASE. Oh my God, I have forgotten my camera up…up…THERE.

We’re hungry and wet, and now a little weepy in that frustrated way. I just can’t do the 9-hour roundtrip even to get my darling. Find a police box. They have this ancient wood phone and I grind away with some side crank. It’s a party line, but they finally raise the teahouse. “We have a foreigner here, says he left a camera. Yes, a Canon. Sure. Understood.” The cop hangs up. “Please wait.” Ummm, OK. We have lunch. We buy dry shirts. Hours pass.

As the afternoon sun dips, we see a man walking the plaza cradling a camera. It’s the teahouse owner. He’s actually WALKED the thing down. For us! We run to him. I’m jumping up and down, grimacing to recall my most gracious Japanese. He smiles. Hands us the Canon, and a pause falls. Is this where I bow deeply? Offer inflated sums of money? Provide ID? Nope. “Have a nice evening,” he says, spinning for the trail.

Wha?! Where is he going? “Well, back up,” my girlfriend says. Noooo! I chase him down, and although I nearly presented him with my pair of spanking new Model 1 Bills, he smiled, accepting my 200-yen package of salted, dried squid and expressed his thanks.

Now, I can hold forth for hours on life in Japan, and I will if you like. But dammit, it’s simple: no place like it!

Our Fathers Wore Khakis.

To the best of my memory, my father marched to his own drummer… never in short supply of an idea or the ability to supply himself with his own brand of entertainment.

Fluent in all sports he chose to pursue, mainly hockey, tennis, golf and fishing, he distinguished himself later in life as a coach of teams he recruited from the local ball fields and frozen ponds of Pennsylvania.

I will never forget the day his baseball team, the “A’s,” a disbanded group of prima donnas either cut, kicked or quit from the borough league, had to travel across town for a game against that very same crack borough league team. With l6 players and only one Ford Wagon, my father thought only once before hitching the “Marwin”, his 20-foot Starcraft fishing boat, to the back of the LTD.

“Put these on and stay low under the bow” he ordered with a heightened sense of safety, tossing us life preservers like we were taking on water, knowing full well fines would be the least of his worries if stopped enroute. For us, it became a mad scramble for the best position in tow. Who would arrive by car when there were alternatives!

Realizing that the situation might play to a psychological advantage over our heavily-favored opponent, my father delayed our arrival precisely ‘til game time where a full field of players would have already taken their positions. With a little gas, a swerve and a grinding stop, the dirt parking lot was churned into a dustbowl. With blank faces and clean haircuts, our opponents stood dumbfound as our rogue team poured over the sides of the “Marwin,” life preservers strapped tight then flung back onboard. Bats in hand, ready to play. Game on.

12 runs later, game over. But let me tell you about that one run we scored…

BILLS PROFILE: Eugene Lee

Eugene and Henry in the studio. The New Yorker magazine photographer Constance Brown came by to photograph his canine companion.

Home
East Providence, Rhode Island. Eugene’s wife, Brooke, is a well-known New England painter.

Occupation
Theatre and Television Set Designer for national TV and Broadway theatre productions including Saturday Night Live, The Hostage for the Irish Republic, the new 2001 TV production of Golden Pond and Cy Coleman’s new Broadway theatre musical Grace.

Awards
The Tony, The Outer Critics Circle Award, The Drama Desk, The American Theatre Wing Design Award, the NAACP Award, Rhode Island Governors Arts Award and the Pell Award to name a few.

How He Learned What He Knows
University of Wisconsin. FBA in scenic design from The Art Institute of Chicago, BFA in Theatre from Carnegie Mellon University and a MFA from Yale School of Drama.

Favorite Distractions
An avid sailor, Eugene is also a well-known collector of vintage timber sailboats.

Clubs
New York Yacht Club, Edgewood Yacht Club, The Hope Club, Agawam Hunt Club, the Providence Art Club and the Yale Club of New York.

Quote
I’m not much for fads. I don’t like company logos on things I wear. Being a simple mid-western “boy”, I like well-made classic items like English umbrellas, Classic English shoes, good khakis, American made clothes of quality.

How I Discovered Bills
Next door to our home, we have a very unique men’s haberdashery. Briggs, who owns this retail emporium and who’s name is emblazoned across the front entrance, took me aside a couple of years ago and asked me to try on a pair of BILLS and then to give him my opinion of this brand. Well to make a long story short, I have worn BILLS for just about everything, ever since.

BILLS PROFILE: Sir Harry

	Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden, the British commander stationed in India who first adapted the color “khaki” for the uniform of his troops.

To think of great British military leaders, names like Churchill and Montgomery come to mind. So who was Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden? It was Sir Harry, a British commander stationed in India for much of the 19th century, who first ordered his troops to soak their imperial white uniforms in a mixture of tea and mud water, transforming the cloth into a sandy, earthy color more suitable for the desert landscape. That color was dubbed “khaki,” the Urdu word meaning dust. It wasn’t long before khaki became the primary uniform color for the entire British Army. The rest is history.

But who was Lieutenant-General Lumsden? The impact he has had on our lives found us digging for answers. What we found was a life of service and adventure.

Sir Harry was born into the British military in 1821, aboard the East India Company’s ship Rose, in the Bay of Bengal. Like many, he was shipped home to study in Scotland at the age of six, returning to India as a cadet ten years later. His aptitude for languages landed him a post as an interpreter. But with his nose for action, he was quickly promoted to Lieutenant, for which he earned severe wounds in a battle at Sobraon.

	The Gurkha Short was worn by fighting regiments because they were fully functional for navigating the Himalayas and the northern frontier of India.

His bravery won recognition from his government and he was charged with the recruitment, formation and training of the “Corps of Guides” for frontier service. He recruited from warlike tribes, men notorious for desperate deeds, or as Sir Harry put it, “accustomed to looking after themselves.” Their uniform included the adoption of the khaki uniform, which Lumsden also introduced into the British and Indian armies. As his Corps of Guides became more seasoned, their reputation grew, as did their ranks, eventually topping 400 cavalry and 600 infantry.

His lifetime of heroics are impossible to capture here, but the dozens of battles he fought left him heavily decorated and legendary among frontier soldiering units. In 1852, upon returning from his first leave in 15 years of continuous service, Lumsden was sent to Kandahar in response to Persia’s taking of Herat. His mission was to ensure that British subsidies paid to the Amir were duly paid to the British troops who were defending Afghanistan from Persia. His role as a diplomat/soldier left him always in danger. Numerous attempts were made on his life. None succeeded.

In 1875, he retired from the Army and returned with his wife to Belhelvie Lodge in Scotland. For the next 21 years, he occupied himself with sport (mainly hawking, shooting, woodcarving, and photography). Described by those who knew him as tall, powerful, a good rider and an exceptional shot, he was relaxed in temper, with a keen sense of humor. Although highly disciplined, Sir Harry had an intense dislike of “official routine.”

We have him to thank for the comfort we find in our routine and the color Khaki.

“HAAWGISMS”


Eddie Holden (A.K.A. Hawg), our Bills Khakis sales rep in the South, is famous for his profound views on life and things in general. On his waist size – “I’m really a 36", but 38"s feel so good, I wear a 40".”

 

 

 

 

A NOTE FROM BILL
Our newsletter is intended to extend a special look into our company, the people behind it, and most importantly, the personalities that really make things tick, our customers. We are looking for your letters and photographs for inclusion in our next newsletter. Tell us about your life adventures with Bills Khakis. Your contributions are not only appreciated, but necessary to create a newsletter that lives up to the above.

Contact Marge at 1-800-43-khaki or customerservice@billskhakis.com with submissions, contributions and pictures.