One can see the strangest people in a mall, everything from those wearing short-shorts and sandals in mid-winter to teens with spiked dog collars. I’m not sure if this is standard dress in the big city, but you don’t see too much of that in Lampasas, thank goodness.

In a small, rural town, people don’t have as much to gawk at. For casual occasions, men -- for the most part -- dress in jeans, Tshirts and boots, while the women are garbed in, well, jeans, T-shirts and boots.

You get where I’m going with this. Straightforward clothes, straightforward people.

Big-city folks, on the other hand, you never quite know what they’re thinking or what they will go out in public wearing.

On the most recent occasion I found myself at a mall’s food court, I sat down to eat a piece of cardboard-flavored pizza (it’s about the most decent-tasting thing a mall offers). At a nearby table was a group of teens, around 17 or 18 years old, getting ready to settle down and eat.

The boys were wearing these pants -- or perhaps I should say the pants were hanging on by a thread -- that sagged real low around their hips. I wasn’t sure how they could walk without tripping over the excess material. I don’t think I could move my legs with that much material hanging in front of them.

If they had stepped on their hems, it could have turned into a very revealing situation.

And to top it off, they had these scarves (I believe they call them ‘do-rags) tied around their heads and low over their eyes, and they were covered in skulls.

Each teen had on a shirt with a different basketball team logo on it. The shirts were long but not long enough to cover those sagging pants and underwear on display.

I’m not sure what kind of fashion statement they were trying to make, or what kind of style they were attempting to copy. They just looked silly -- kind of like the rappers on television who sing (and I use that term loosely) about things I wouldn’t want my kids to know about at any age.

What kind of parents let their kids out in public looking like that? My kids weren’t even allowed to leave the house if their hair was uncombed or their shirts were wrinkled. I believed they were representative of the values I worked hard to instill in them.

What values are the parents of these “gangster-wannabees” trying to instill in their kids? Where is their pride? I just don’t get it.

I guess I’m old-fashioned, but I think a kid should leave the house dressed in something that would make his or her parents proud to be seen with them and be seen in public, and that people would know kids from Lampasas (and their parents) have the pride that comes from being raised in a small town.

My kids are grown, and both have chosen to live in big cities, just like a lot of youths who believe they missed out on many things because they grew up in a small town.

I imagine seeing strange things is nothing new for them, and they probably don’t even bat an eye at someone with yellow spiked hair or who sports six-inch platform-wedge heels.

But me, I’ll take the boots and jeans any day. I even appreciate a nice cowboy hat.

While so much has changed over the years, and new trends are introduced almost daily, you can always count on small-town folks to have pride in themselves and their appearance.

Maybe things haven’t really changed much at all -- at least not in Lampasas.

Lisa Carnley is managing editor of the Lampasas Dispatch Record.