I’ve acquired many T-shirts over the years. (The OED capitalizes the “T.”) Many are difficult to part with, even though I rarely wear them anymore. They are imbued with nostalgia, with sweat marks, and with delightful dyes. Each has a story.
Alas, as I have aged to a ripe six-and-twenty, I now enter a professional life with State licensing, malpractice insurance, and billable hours pursuing me every waking moment. Accordingly, I’ve begun planning a wardrobe purge–and believe me, little excites me less than the thought of clothes-shopping.
Em (as by now, gentle reader, you must have surmised that your loyal blogger matriarch has not authored this post) turned to rid my bureau of its most prized possessions, adding to the Goodwill stack shirts of her own. In tribute, therefore, I conceived this post in order to bid a final farewell to many an important T-shirt.
(N.B.: WordPress likes to convert my perfect HTML into its imperfect attempt at “assisting” me in its automatic conversion from sensible HTML to nonsense. Bear with me, as the photos are poorly aligned. Alas.)
Mission: Impossible
From: eBay, circa 2002, as I attempted to horde Mission: Impossible memorbilia.
Accessory: Morpheus knock-off sunglasses from The Matrix.
Fashion: This T-shirt became a staple of my law school examination routine. I would wear it during my first examination, as it exhorted the reader, “Expect the Impossible.”
Pros: Classic 90s computer images; trendy retro Apple symbol.
Cons: Black; no one ever noticed that it was appropriate for an examination.
Men in Black
From: High school friends Tim and Roy, circa 1999, as they visited the then-new MIB ride at Universal Studios, Florida.
Accessories: (not pictured) Orange Hawai’ian shirt (tossed long ago, alas–a classy pineapples motif) and imitation MIB Ray-Bans (lost long ago).
Fashion: Useful for a retro-style orange kick. (Plus the neat movie references: “J & K’s Extermination Service”; how clever!) Often seen at amusement parks and summer gatherings.
Pros: Orange, excellent fonts and screening.
Cons: XL, slightly gruesome image (of an alien exploding into a spray of black goo… perhaps not the most pleasant public image).
“The Shirt 2004”
From: Notre Dame football season 2004.
Accessory: Wool cap for a chilly November afternoon.
Fashion: Necessary at all 2004 home games (and, by default on account of the horrific design of the 2005 shirt, all 2005 games as well), and suitable apparel for TV viewing, Fiesta Bowl attending, basketball games, and other instances in which showing Irish pride is appropriate.
Pros: Simple, classy design; lucky green in honor of Ty’s first season.
Cons: Outdated after one year; Ty was fired after this season.
Hillsdale College
From: Circa 2000, upon acceptance/arrival at Hillsdale.
Accessories: Orange shorts and a Saga tray (which, according to Em, was a “staple” of my dinner wardrobe for many years).
Fashion: The classic college T, this simple blue-on-gray was readily available for any collegiate-related activity, or for a warm summer evening.
Pros: Simple, elegant, stylish.
Cons: XL, fading letters.
InterVarsity Shirt, Isaiah 60:1
From: Hillsdale IVCF, 2003
Accessory: Pious carrying of a compact updated NASB.
Fashion: Gone are the days of the more explicit Christian witness T-shirts. (Because I can’t find a link to my favorite junior high Witness Wear T, I’ll just reproduce the text of it here: “Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM a wide-eyed, sanctified, blood bought, Spirit taught, Bible totin’, Scripture quotin’, Satan bashin’, sin trashin’, hard prayin’, truth conveyin’, faith walkin’, Gospel talkin’, bonafide big time believer AND PROUD OF IT!”) Instead, this simple and tasteful shirt was part of a second-generation of IVCF’s annual T-shirts. The first generation was largely bland MS Office clip art. The second generation brought in a cool style and a subtle message.
Pros: Unique color, outstanding graphics, theme to ’03-’04 year.
Cons: Too many questions about whether the Cornflakes logo or Muslim crescent were involved.
Detroit Tigers
From: Circa 1996.
Accessory: A home-style Detroit Tigers cap (white Olde English D on navy).
Fashion: Really, ubiquitous for any Detroit-related event.
Pros: Simple design, classy stitching.
Cons: XL (notice a theme?), stitching began to fray.
Ragamuffins
From: Hillsdale College Powder Puff Football 2002.
Accessory: (difficult to see in picture) Mouthguard.
Fashion: Center or Guard.
Pros: Excellent line art graphics, classy design.
Cons: Yellow renders wearing opportunities minimal, acknowledgement of Powder Puff rarely creeps outside the 49242 zip code.
Got Pudge?
From: Roadside stand in metro Detroit, October 2006. Received as a gift, Christmas 2006.
Accessory: Feminine Tigers’ New Era cap (robin’s egg blue on white).
Fashion: Sleep wear, grub wear, and, of course, Tigers games.
Pros: Dank basement clip art-to-roadside stand “classic.”
Cons: Well, just one little one: If the catcher identified as “Pudge” on the shirt, wearing a #7, is traded to an American League rival located in the Bronx, then the answer to the question on the back becomes incorrect.
I love this post! it is hilarious! hope you guys are doing well!
I am sad that Union Yes! was sent to its tragic end before it could be immortalized in this blog post.
Get a blog, Derek!
Mariel, I’d totally forgotten about that Union Yes! one! Many, many of Derek’s T-shirts were relegated to the rag bag or Goodwill (or, in the case of the orange ones, “accidentally” bleached) in the first year of our marriage. My hubby is no longer color-coded….there are weeks in which no orange appears on his person. Sometimes it’s hard to find him when I come into the dining room and don’t see a blinding flash of orange to let me know which table he’s at. (Since we only have one table in our dining room, I usually find him, anyway.) To make up for it, our family buys Tommy bright orange clothes whenever they see them. Come kindergarten, I’ll have to start betting away his orange clothes on his grades (and since I’ll be doing the grading, not Dr. Whalen, I can guarantee that I won’t have to go out borrowing orange apparel from all of my trendy friends).
Derek, thank you for the fashion lessons. The pictures were priceless!
Emily, you are not even getting rid of the ragamuffins t-shirt. It’s such a classy color, you could wear it anywhere! Mine is currently (and permanently) covered in blue paint from my latest attempt to make the downstairs bathroom attractive.
::laughing::
Goodwill is surely blessed by your donation of such precious items!