Yes indeedy, 30 years ago is right on the mark for "suit separates." I'd quite forgotten that, but in 1976 I was [link|http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/.Pictures/p1976.jpg|married] in a (shudder) solid brown three-piece suit sold with a second pair of slacks patterned in a ghastly houndstooth (cringe). The vest, moreover, was (whimper) reversible, with the same houndstooth available at need. This being 1976, of course, it came with lapels that could puncture the eye of someone at close quarters, as in a crowded subway car, and was typically worn with a necktie the size of a bib.

Many of our fashion decisions in that era were not as well thought out as they might have been. And the kitchen appliances in avocado and burnt-puke yellow—what was that all about?

I was considerably leaner, if not nearly as mean, in those days, and by the early 1990s the whole ensemble, long unworn and by then long unwearable, found its way to the Salvation Army in the course of a move to smaller quarters. With the present spike in energy prices I regret having parted with it: surely it could be profitably rendered today for its petroleum content, yielding a vast and fabulous sum to provide for me in my sunset years.

senescently (but with marginally better fashion sense, it is devoutly to be hoped),