Now Peterson owns 15 kilts in various colors and fabrics

Tag : uniform fabrics

He's a guy with a Norwegian/Finn ancestry. And until a couple ofyears ago, he hadn't much thought about kilts one way or another.
It all began, really, because of his wife.
Joni Peterson has been a longtime fan of Scottish actor GerardButler. He played the well-buffed King Leonidas in the recent film"300."
She's such a fan, in fact, that a couple of years ago Joni went toScotland on a trip organized by a Web site for Butler fans.
Joni returned with a traditional tartan kilt as a present for herhusband.
He had never worn a kilt before.
He tried it on.
He liked it.
Peterson is a big, muscular guy who is 6 feet tall and weighs in at250 pounds.
With pants, he says, "Because I have big thighs, the skin rubs, andyou get that scarring, you know, where little bits of skinprotrude?"
But a kilt, he says, "It's like a breeze blowing through thehouse."
Reaction from public
In the summer of 2006, Peterson decided to go public with his kilt.He and his wife went to his postal union local's annual picnic.
"I knew I was going to drink beer, so I wouldn't care what peoplewere thinking," he remembers.
"People gave me looks, joked around a little, asked why I waswearing a skirt," Peterson says.
Sometimes, he says, people do ask him "if I'm going 'commando'under that kilt."
Of course, going commando means not wearing any underwear.
He does.
Now Peterson owns 15 kilts in various colors and fabrics.
He goes to Fred Meyer in a kilt. He takes his wife out torestaurants in a kilt. He does yardwork in a kilt. He goes in akilt to watch his 15-year-old son, Dante, play in the high-schoolband.
Perhaps it's because one might think twice about making fun of abig guy like Peterson. But Peterson says that mostly what he getsare stares.
Dante says, "It's pretty cool that my dad fights for what he thinkshe should do. My buddies have no problem with it. "
Taking on the "fuddy-daddies"
Soon enough, Peterson began envisioning a time when he could wearkilts to work. Right now, male carriers wear pants, either long orshort. Female carriers can wear skirts.
Any changes in Postal Service uniforms are complicated.
The union has to approve it. A Postal Service committee has to testthe garment, for such things as waterproofing and sun screening. Amanufacturer has to be found.
Peterson barged ahead.
Last summer, the state convention of the letter carriers' unionadopted Peterson's resolution for Male Unbifurcated Garments, orMUGs.
Then came last week's national convention.
Peterson spent all $1,800 his family had received from thegovernment's economic-stimulus tax rebate to mail off 1,000 lettersto every postal-union branch in the country. He included a photo ofhimself in a mock-up Postal Service kilt.
He explained that kilts "don't confine the legs or cramp the malegenitals the way that trousers or shorts do."
He even got support from the Oregon letter-carriers union, whichpassed the same resolution.
Says Brooks Bennett, executive board member of the letter-carriersunion in Washington state, "In Washington and Oregon, I guess welike to see ourselves as being progressive. Things get a hearinghere that might not in other places."
But at the national convention, reception was frosty from thedecision-makers. At one point, Peterson was so nervous that hemistakenly said "UPS" when he meant "USPS," for United StatesPostal Service. That got him roundly booed.
The committee in charge of the resolution nixed the kilts, sayingthere wasn't much demand for them.
Peterson says it was the older members — "the fuddy-daddies,"he calls them — who didn't like the kilts. He says he couldsee them staring at him as he wore a kilt on the convention floor.
"All you could see was dirty looks."
He vows to return with his resolution at the next nationalconvention in 2010.
Peterson was wearing a kilt as he was promising that.
He looked quite comfortable.
Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com