The Fly

“THE HISTORY OF THE ZIPPER?” (BY Robert Friedel, Summer 1994) brought to mind my first experience with a zipper, just before the summer of 1940. I opened a law office in 1938, and in the spring of 1940 I bought a new suit, with a zipper, for $59.50. Connecticut’s blue laws forbade the sale of liquor after 9:00 P.M. on Sunday, and to attract diners, the Seven Gables in Milford, the premier nightclub in the area, had a Sunday dinner from six to nine for one dollar. Still a bachelor, I invited a recent Smith College graduate for an afternoon ride in my new used Plymouth, followed by dinner and dancing at the Seven Gables.

In the late afternoon a car sped by us and slammed into a tree on a curve in the highway. My date and I helped to extricate four Yale students from their wrecked car (the struck tree bears a scar to this day). Eventually we arrived at the Seven Gables and dined and danced to the rhythms of a big band led by Frankie Carle, the composer of “Sunrise Serenade.” I went to the men’s room wearing my new suit. I pulled the zipper down. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t get the zipper back up again, even with soap or pencil lead applied to it. The men’s room attendant gave me two safety pins. The next day I had the zipper removed and went back to buttons.

Harold B. Yudkin
Derby, Conn.