Grandma, I Need a Costume

Producing a costume with less than a day's notice is all in a day's work for a grandmother/parent. It happened again yesterday. This time the challenge was to create a witness in the Moby Dick trial. This character had 30 days earlier been rescued and fortunately escaped being cannibalized. He was an ordinary sea-faring man of the early 1800's. Who knew what he would wear in a court room? My best guess was that he would look something like today's Amish. So between Goodwill and the furthest reaches of Ben's closet, this is what emerged:

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In creating this costume, I drew upon my experience morphing an eight-year-old Danny (I guess I really should call him Dan, but I just can't, especially when I'm remembering him at age eight) into Han Solo of Star Wars fame. Madeline had invited Danny to a Star Wars-themed birthday party and he chose to be Han Solo. And he was the only Han Solo at the party. All the other attendees were Princess Leias.

But, I digress.Surprisingly, a Han Solo costume is not very different from that of a 19th century shipwreck survivor. Han wore black pants, a light colored Henley shirt with a little bit of a stand-up color, and a black vest fashioned from an old black tee shirt. Ben is wearing black scrubs (from his Winter Drum Line outfit) an olive green shirt (Goodwill - $3.00), a black tee fashioned into a vest, and a straw hat.