It’s the first really cold Fall morning and, sure enough, they’re back. ‘They’ in this case refers to the
asinine men who, for reasons best known only to them, refuse to wear topcoats in cold weather. And, sad to say, it is always men who violate ‘change of season’ dress codes.

As I write this, it’s a brisk and bracing 37 degrees at the Middletown train station. The women commuters are bundled up (some to excess, it must be said). And most guys seem warm, if not happy, in their jackets, coats and hats.

But, then there’s the guy who comes sauntering along in his buttondown, longsleeve Brooks Brothers shirt acting as if it’s the Fourth of July. And, there’s another guy wearing a t-shirt, sportsjacket and, in his only acknowledgement of the frigid temps, a dashing scarf wrapped around his neck.

Tough guys who don’t feel the cold always have their hands shoved into their pant pockets, walk at breakneck speed and have a grimace permanently planted on their kissers.

What are they trying to prove: that they’re impervious to chills? That they’re throwbacks to John Wayne, Dick Butkus and other ‘real’ men?

Give me a break. The ‘I’m a tough guy in cold weather image’ is totally bogus. And, it sends the wrong message to kids who, almost universally, now seem to disdain outerwear in Winter. So, what’s with these thick-skinned macho nuts? They may think they’re cool, but the only image they’re projecting to me is one of stupidity.