I remember western day at school. Blue jeans, boots, western shirt, cowboy hat AND a 2 gun rig with nickel cap pistols and rolls of caps in my pocket! Had some epic gun battles in the playground, good times!
In grade school in the 1960's we had a dress code. Boys, a shirt with a collar, dress slacks, and shoes with a polish. No jeans, no tennis shoes. Girls, skirt or dress of the proper length. No pants or shorts.
One day in second grade, for some reason I decided to wear cowboy boots. Now they were low profile, just black, no wild decorations. I wore them inside my pants so they were very unnoticeable. Just pointy toes and the classic heel.
When the teacher saw them, she almost dislocated my shoulder as she yanked me from my desk and hauled me to the front of the class. I had to stand in front of the class as I was berated and belittled for what seemed like an extraordinarily long time. Then I was sent to the office and excoriated by the principle and was not allowed to return to class until my mother brought shoes for me to change into and took my cowboy boots home. Then I was made to walk back into the class room with a note from the principle to the teacher saying I was allowed to return.
I was told that cowboy boots were disruptive and would cause other students to think it's OK to not follow the rules. I was treated like a rebel, a criminal! Like I had done something really, really bad. Funny thing is, I was the happiest, most good-natured and agreeable child you could imagine. I was also the smallest physically in my class at that age because I started school a year early. I think these things are what made me an easy target for a teacher(s) that had their own personal issues.
We did have a couple of kids who were real bad actors and we were told “Well they have personal problems and behavioral issues and the best way to deal with them is just ignore them.” I honestly think the teachers took out their frustration on kids like me because they knew we were compliant and there would be no consequences.
edit to add, now that I think about it there was a similar incident with the same teacher over a comic book, and also after I had lost all respect for this particular teacher (Mrs. Murphy...what a witch) another incident when I told her something that was not technically true just to get her off my back...
