Frank Bruni's profile of Scott Brown, the new senator for Massachusetts, is a small work of art: perceptive, vividly detailed, generous, tart and funny. Brown is one of the more exotic blooms of American politics, a former male model who successfully cultivates a truck-driving, blue-collar image. In Bruni's portrait he comes over as shallow and vain but likeable, sort of like Sam Malone in Cheers but without the womanising - the most convincing evidence of his personal decency is the strength of his marriage and the fact that his daughters, now in their early twenties, clearly adore him. The youngest, Arianna, has a healthy sense of mischief, though. She gets her own back for being called out as "available" in her father's acceptance speech by sharing a bit of Brown family lore with Bruni: her father turned up for his first date with his future wife wearing pink leather shorts:
The pinkish color drained from his face when I asked him about it during a conversation in his campaign office just before we took off in the truck. He clarified that the shorts weren’t something that he went out and purchased — it wasn’t like that at all. “I did the couture shows, and instead of paying in cash, they paid in clothes,” he said. “And one of the things I had to wear were leather shorts. And these happened to be pink.”
As he told the story, he seemed, almost in spite of himself, to get into it. “If I wore these now,” he said, “I’d get shot. But it was the ’80s. Pastels were in. It was all pastel-y.” The shorts went with his tan at the time and a pair of white shoes that he owned, so he gave them a whirl. “Gail comes out and she’s like, ‘Those are pink shorts.’ I said: ‘Yeah, you like them? They’re great. Comfortable. Feel this leather.’ ” With this last phrase, he slowly stroked the side of one of his thighs, apparently miming the gesture he made in front of her.
In 1972, the then premier of South Australia, Don Dunstan, once wore pink shorts to Parliament. But as far as I know these weren't leather.
http://samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=239&c=655
http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=239
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