The dancers romped across the television screen showing off the hottest fashions.

"They are not your mother's clothes," said the voice of the announcer.

Hearing that statement, I laughed out loud.

"They sure are your mother's clothes," I yelled to my husband in the other room.

"What?" he yelled back.

A skinny girl with her middle showing was bending and stretching her way through another advertisement.

"That commercial," I said. "It said 'they are not your mother's clothes.' The stuff they are wearing is right out of 1969."

Judging from the ages of the models, their parents were probably teenagers in the late 1960s.

"I'll bet their mothers wore bell bottoms just like the ones they are wearing," I said in the general direction of my husband. "They call them low-rides or some such foolishness. We called them hip huggers, same thing.

I should have saved all my clothes from high school because they are in style right now. Guess they would be 'vintage clothing.'

Not too many years ago, I visited the high school in Opp to talk to a journalism class. On that day, all the kids were dressed in bell bottoms, beads and clunky shoes. They looked like my class the year I was a senior.

It hit me hard when I learned they were dressed that way because it was nerd day at the school.

Funny, but those nerd-day fashions look like the advertisements on television and in magazines these days.

I guess I'm really getting old because the sloppy bell bottoms, tight midriff-flaunting shirts and sheer peasant blouses are not that attractive to me.

"I'm sorry those clothes were ugly when we wore them and they are still ugly now," I said to my husband who was now passing through the living room. "I wonder if we looked that tacky to our parents."

"Probably," he answered.

It's funny how things come back around. Fashion seems to travel in a circle and land right back in your closet.

A commercial ended and a news report came on. Images of soldiers and bombs replaced the dancing models.

"Well, this also looks like television when I was a teenager," I said to my husband who was now in the laundry room.

"What, more bell bottom commercials," he said stepping around the corner.

"No. They are showing the war," I replied, "reminds me of the news stories about Viet Nam in the early seventies."

I listened for a few minutes as the reporter talked about intense battles, casualties and gave a count of POWs and MIAs.

"It's kind of sad to see this again," I said.

"Yes, it is," my husband answered.

It's not that I don't support the troops, but it would be nice if this part of my teenage years didn't repeat itself.

I hate that another generation is experiencing war with its fear and uncertainty because that is even uglier than those hip-hugger bell bottoms we wore all those years ago.