The famous t-shirt

My son wearing the shirt at left, and my husband wearing the shirt, at right, while helping clean out my parents' basement after a flood, in 1972.

Tale of a T-shirt

Besides my diploma, I have a few items that still remain from my college days.  There's a green mug with the school crest that was perfect for hot lemon tea with a shot of my buddy Baker's Canadian Club when I had a bad cold.  In a file somewhere, there is a manila envelope with letters and cards, including a batch from the English class of my student teaching days.  I even have the trunk I lugged back and forth, even though it sits in the garage and is filled with deflated basketballs and rollerblades.

Before leaving DeKalb for good, so many years ago, I stopped in the bookstore and picked up an NIU t-shirt and a red football jersey with my year of graduation on it.  Both were on sale and even though I was running low on money, I still managed to arrive home with $10 in my pocket.  The t-shirt was for my boyfriend (now husband) and God knows what happened to the jersey - though I have seen old pictures with different siblings wearing it.  But that t-shirt has lived on.

NIU's colors are black and red and most Huskie apparel comes in these shades.  The famed t-shirt, however, is navy blue with white lettering and it did get lots of wear over the years. Someone wore it while painting - I think it was the back fence from our house in Evanston - and it acquired many white splotches. Then, for some reason, our sons thought it was a cool thing to wear and it managed to survive their high school and college years as well.

It was torn under one arm, and just generally became more and more worn as time went by, but apparently it was made well, and despite its age, avoided landing in the rag bag.

Last week, one of my sons came home for the weekend.  On Sunday morning, he came down for breakfast wearing - of all things - the blue t-shirt.  "I can't believe you still have that thing," I told him.  "It's a lot older than you are; I thought it was falling apart."

"I had it fixed," was his sleepy response.  I learned that he actually took the t-shirt to a tailor at his local cleaners and had this 37-year old, paint-stained t-shirt repaired into fairly decent shape.  I don't want to know how much that cost him.

It's funny how an inanimate object can take on a life of its own.  The shirt has traveled with me from DeKalb to River Grove to Madison, Wisconsin; to Chicago, to Evanston, to Glenview, to Bloomington and Oxford, back to Glenview and then back to Chicago - the last time in my son's duffel bag.  

I remember the night he and his brother moved out of our house to their apartment in the city. As they drove the moving truck to the end of the street, they banged on the sides of the doors and hooted with excitement.  The shirt was with them, something that had to remind them a little of home, kind of like a little security blanket but a lot cooler.

I hope he holds on to that ratty old shirt.  It makes me think that wherever he goes, he's taking a little bit of his dad and me with him.

Taking a Digger on Van Buren

As kids, we often judged the severity of a winter by how many times the ice or snow caused us to fall on the sidewalk, street or alleys.  Our grammar school was only a couple blocks away and we made the trek through two unpaved alleys that were nothing but tire ruts punctuated by dozens of potholes.  The potholes would fill with snow which would get tamped down by cars, then thaw a little, then freeze.  It was inevitable that you would fall at some point, often falling on loose stones and sending books and pencil cases across the ground.  

If you happened to tell my Aunt Alice that you fell - at any time of year and for any reason - she would immediately start to laugh.  It didn't matter if you hurt yourself or not, she found any fall hysterical. If a sibling saw you fall, Alice would be the first to know. My beloved aunt has been gone for a number of years, now, but she is never far from our thoughts.

Today was brutal.  Single digit temps with sub-zero windchill. Any leftover snowpiles or slush puddles along the sidewalks were completely frozen over, and therefore treacherous. I managed pretty well going to the office, but heading to the train in the evening was my downfall, literally.

As I stepped off the curb on Van Buren near the LaSalle Street Station, my feet went right out from under me and I fell forward in the middle of the street.  I landed hard on one knee but my many layers provided enough padding and spared me from torn slacks.  Of course, I immediately stood up, looking around to see if anyone saw me.  I was in between packs of people and those ahead of me kept on moving, oblivious to my spill. But as I started to get to my feet, I heard, "oh, wow..." from behind me.  Turning quickly to the voice, a man asked if I was ok.  I was more embarrassed than anything else and motioned I was fine.  

I didn't lose much time getting to the train, took my seat and settled in. But after a couple stops, a dull ache started in my knee. I imagine that will be a nice shade of blue and purple by tomorrow.

In the last couple years, YouTube-style videos of (usually) women falling have been emailed back and forth among the women in our family.  Women dancing on tables at weddings who fall off, women who bend too far over when tossing a coin in a fountain and fall in, women who try out the kids' swingset or trampoline and fly off - these visuals are perfect for causing my sisters and cousins, (and me, too) to laugh out loud at the computer screen, and thinking, "that looks like a Judy fall, or a Carol fall..."

As I scrambled to regain my footing on Van Buren today, I could have sworn I heard someone laughing.  I'm sure my Aunt Alice is enjoying this winter.