The End of an Era

Eljo's to Sell

In August of 1983, a young resident of South Jersey decamped to Charlottesville, VA to get on with the business of growing up.

My father drove me down in one of his Caddies (he’d pick me up in it at the end of the year), and dropped me off with the Gunnery Sergeant in charge of getting a bunch of “Fourth Class Midshipmen” ship shape in a week. He claimed to have shed a few tears on the way home, but there is no record of this.

We arrived a week before the other students to participate in “Indoctrination Week”, where we learned how to march, how to stand at attention, parade rest, and be dismissed, how to wear (and iron!) uniforms, etc. I’m still friends with a bunch of the people I met that summer, but I don’t think any are still in the Navy. We got to move into our dorms a few days earlier than the other students which was nice, with the only other people in the dorm as far as I could tell being football players going through their paces before the season started. This guy was right down the hall from me.

They bussed us out to “Barracks Road” where there was a barber shop (Staples Barber Shop) waiting for us, a few chairs for the two minute exertion required. Lickity split I had a #2 tapered, a style I’d retain for much of the next 25 years.

The Boys at Staples

I was a fish out of water in Charlottesville. There were several early signs. The first was realizing after a few days of dorm life that 90% of the dudes in the dorm wore boxer shorts, while I was there in my tighty-whiteys. The only experience I’d had to that point with boxers was that of my father shuffling out in the morning to make a two-soft boiled egg request of my mother, and high school classmate Anthony Valentine who sported them popping out of his gym short leg holes to the fascination of the rest of us.

The next sign was the first football game. The day of the game, the whole dorm was “abuzz”, with a good many of the fellas having obtained “dates” for the game (which was a thing, I’d learned), and ALL of them slapping on Blue Blazers and ties. For a FOOTBALL GAME! Apparently, no one told me of either of these practices back in South Jersey, and I arrived woefully unprepared (the wearing of coat and tie to football games has dramatically declined among the students, a sign of the decline of civilization). My dorm was crawling with southern prep school types, and here I was, a New Jersey hood bedded down among them. I did not have a blue blazer. I did have a sport coat that was a big hit in South Jersey, but less so in Charlottesville. It was leather.

I’d never met anyone who’d graduated from UVA and so I had no heads up on the lore. I showed up with the aforementioned tighty-whiteys, no ties, a leather jacket, and yes—the dreaded “PARACHUTE” pants that I am STILL hearing about forty one years later.

It was a hard transition, but I put my head down and made some forward progress. One of the steps I took was going to Eljo’s. Eljo’s was a men’s store on the Corner, right across the street from the Lawn, and it was pretty much prep school fashion central. Blue Blazers with UVA buttons, orange and blue ties, khaki pants for miles, and of course, boxer shorts. Now, I could not afford Eljo’s as a supplier mind you, but there were a few things I picked up to help stick out less. Over time, I’d buy myself something every once in a while, each time achieving some small measure of fitting in. I’d never HEARD of Ray-Ban sunglasses before Risky Business came out that summer, but apparently they were standard issue to the up and comers and would be up and comers at UVA. I’ll never forget buying my first pair at Eljo’s and marveling at how much they cost. If feel confident I deposited them in a McDonald’s trash bin by accident while clearing my tray.

UVA Fraternity Man, undated, likely festooned in Eljos clothing

After graduating, each trip back to UVA included a trip to Eljo’s, and as I had a little cash in my pocket, I shopped there with greater confidence and entitlement. A UVA rugby here, some Royal Lyme after shave there, you get the picture. Eljo’s WAS UVA. It was where you went to level up as a young man. It was part of the experience.

Years after I graduated, Eljo’s left the Corner and headed a couple miles north to the Barracks Road shopping center. I never stepped foot in that store. Not out of any principle or something like that, but because Barracks Road shopping center was not only list of places I went when I was at UVA (save for the first NROTC haircut), and so I didn’t go there as an adult. I ordered stuff online, mind you. When high school friends of my daughters were accepted and decided to attend, I’d have Eljo’s send out a set of UVA Blue Blazer buttons as a welcome gift. Others got various forms of UVA swag a step up from the standard T-shirt store fare.

Eljo’s On The Corner in the 1950’s

I got an email from a friend the other day containing the news that the owners of Eljo’s are selling. I went to their website (to link to it in this essay) and it had an announcement that they are looking for a buyer. Man I hope someone buys it and keeps it JUST LIKE IT IS. Better yet, I hope they move it back to the Corner. I read the rationale of the guy who’s been running the place for six decades, and he said it is time to do something else. Sounds about right.

About that drive home at the end of the first year. Most of the rest of the dorm was gone when Dad showed up. My roommate was already gone, so the plan was for Dad to sleep on roomies bed. We went out to dinner, surveyed the year, had a grand time. At one point, I ordered a Jack Daniels and Coke. When the waitress brought it to me, my Dad kinda looked at me funny. I wasn’t quite legal, but I was happy to get carded and turned down, but I didn’t. I asked if he were bothered that I ordered it.

“No,” he said, “I’m bothered because you put Coke in good whiskey.”

Legend.

How Cults Begin

Attentive readers are aware of my foray into the world of Electric Vehicles (EV). It really is a bit of a change, and there is a true transition period involved. One of the things I’ve done to ease the transition was to join an online Lucid owners forum. There is a TON great information there after three years of production, and pretty much every question I have had been answered with a search and a little reading.

That said, I cannot tell you how ridiculous this site can be. Lucid is a new carmaker, a startup, and it is suffering from a lot of issues that startups have. That said, the number of people on this forum who have set themselves up as “protectors of the Lucid brand” and “Lucid Whisperers” for the rest of us is astounding.

One of the reasons I bought the car is the degree to which Over The Air computer program changes can bring new and desired capability to the car. Last week I downloaded a pretty major upgrade, one that had been delayed in implementation nearly a month and which had a TON of bugs in it that should have been worked out in testing (the version pushed to me was the “fixed” version). The forum had a lot of owners with legitimate gripes about the new program and others who were hearing all about this upgrade but had yet to receive it. There was VERY LITTLE authoritative communication from Lucid, but my goodness, were there a ton of self-appointed gatekeepers acting like marmish recess ladies criticizing anyone with the temerity to point out that the program as pushed was not ready for delivery and the company wasn’t communicating all that well. I watch as these people who seem to spend much of their day on this forum looking for the next opportunity to defend the company (they talk about the CEO as if he lives next door). Any problem encountered was “just an inconvenience that future load will fix” and capabilities that were removed in favor of others deemed more desired (they got rid of a version of Alexa to control things in the car for a Lucid developed one, and some owners really liked Alexa) are things just to put in the rearview mirror, because the wizards at Lucid know better than we peons can ever know.

What I feel I’m observing cult behavior. Ignore what you know and see, just believe in the plan and the boss.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE this car and the program upgrade is working FINE in my car. I do find myself holding back from unloading on some of these self-important, preening flacks. My patience wanes.

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