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.