B.V.D.

“I’m just wearing my usual. Starting from the bottom, I have B.V.D. briefs, size ten, one tee shirt...”

M. Yoshoto, in his B.V.D.’s and trousers, was seated at the kitchen table, reading a Japanese newspaper.

He was somewhat startled though on an afternoon when he went into a shop to purchase "B.V.D.'s" and found the store in charge of the young daughter of the proprietor.

Kodak, B.V.D., and Coca-Cola have for generations bared their teeth in courtrooms to protect their names from slipping into the generic limbo where mimeograph and nylon now languish in lower-case ignominy.

The buyer was Sol Kittay, a British emigrant and former head of the B.V.D. underwear company who is known for acquiring losing operations and making them profitable.