Bring Back The Handkerchief!

I have used a pocket-handkerchief all my life—and was ridiculed for it. Now, my habit has found its moment

- Scott Turow

THE TEXT FROM my son said it all: “Dad, there’s an article you were born to write that the world is finally ready for: Bring Back the Handkerchief!”

As my son knows, there’s no “bring back” for me. For me, the handkerchief never left.

My mother raised me with several fixed rules. One was that a gentleman always has a clean handkerchief in his right rear pocket, a piece of simple cotton, roughly 15 inches square and less than four inches when folded. I was a dutiful son, but I can recall being a ten-year-old on the school playground, feeling the padding directly over my butt and wondering what it was there for. Time would tell.

Every night for most of my life, I have removed from my trousers the items I’m going to need the next day—keys, wallet and hankie, if it’s still unused. After 60 years, I am like the princess in ‘The Princess and the Pea’. My bodyweight feels wrong if I’m heading out of the house with an empty back pocket.