Tag Archives: memory

Old T-Shirts

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This Shirt is Long Gone

This Shirt is Long Gone

How many T-shirts does one person need?  That is the question that has bounced around my little pea of a brain many times.  The thing is, I have a lot of them T-shirts, not brains).  Occasionally, I weed through them and get rid of a few.  I turn them into rags if they are in really bad shape.  I give them away if they are in really good shape.  I sold one on eBay–a 1986 Dartmouth College Winter Carnival shirt with a Where the Wild Things Are theme in egg yolk yellow–that I had been hauling around for years.  I got 14 bucks for it.

I have too many T-shirts right now.  The problem is, they aren’t just random T-shirts.  I got them from all kinds of moments in my life–running marathons, working at outdoor education centers, time with friends, you know what I’m talking about.  Each T-shirt has a story.  I have one red T-shirt from the Atlanta Olympic games, 1996.  I was working at the University of Vermont and the woman whose desk was next to mine was wearing it.  I really liked it so I said to her:  ” I really like that shirt.  Can I have it?”  She said she wouldn’t just give it to me but would trade it for the one I was wearing (aqua, with a person jumping for a trapeze in the woods).  We both took off our shirts right then (I definitely got the better deal there) and I had a new shirt.

It is hard to give up a shirt with a story like that.  What about the high school program I did as a junior?  I still have the shirt, a one of a kind long sleever, but it is mighty tattered.  I keep it, rarely wear it, and decide to keep it again each time I rummage through the pile.  I have shirts that are over 20 years old.  That just seems silly.  I managed to get by just fine twenty years ago without twenty year old shirts, so why do I hang onto these?  Good question.

Nostalgia, that’s why.  I don’t need them all.  I mean, I have a whole drawer full of T-shirts.  So again the question:  How many T-shirts does one person need?  I know there isn’t really an answer to that question; at least, there isn’t only one answer.  But I think I may be ready to pare at this point.  I need to come up with a number so I can make some hard decisions.  I want some to wear around.  They are good summer wear, after all.  They aren’t all 20 years old, so keeping the newer ones seems to make sense.  I also sleep in them sometimes.  And I want some to wearing painting or weeding the garden or even just going for a hike.

Five clean ones and five for messing about?  That sounds good.  But I may have some trouble ditching the memory garb.  Maybe I can try for ten and give myself a maximum of twenty.  That might work.  Maybe I would end up with fifteen.  Last night I wore a marathon shirt from 1998 to bed.  I love that shirt.  Maybe I’ll keep that one.  And get rid of the marathon shirt from 2002.  I have two of those.  And I might be able to sell that Olympic one on eBay, but I like that one.

I don’t miss the Where the Wild Things Are shirt.  I can’t imagine that, once they are gone, I will miss any of the others.  But crap, kids, this could take a while.

When Forgetting Pays Off

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Visual of the Elusive Critter

Visual of the Elusive Critter

 

Last weekend I drove down to New Hampshire.  When I left on Friday I grabbed two things to pop into a mailbox, one of which was a DVD from Netflix to be returned.  I figured I would pass a mailbox at some point.  I picked up a friend to ride together and, once we got conversing, I totally forgot about the mail.  We arrived at our destination and I had to leave a random object (in this case a tin of mints) in front of the steering wheel to remind me to find a mailbox on the way home.

The tin of mints did its job.  It reminded me that I had left the mail under the seat and dutifully took it out to mail on the way home.  Since my friend and I rode home together again, however, I repeated my forgetfulness on the return journey.  I got home and the mail was still in my possession.  I dropped it in the mailbox to be picked up by our carrier the next day.  It was Sunday.

We had been watching the Indiana Jones series–four in a row was the plan.  We had watched the first three and the most recent, from last year, was on our itinerary for that Sunday.  The children fell asleep and I noticed that the disc I thought was the one we wanted was sealed in its return envelope.  I figured we had sealed it up by mistake and realized that it was the third movie.  I had put the wrong one in the mailbox.  At this point I was thinking how glad I was not to have found a mailbox it after all.  I would have sent away the film we were hoping to see.

So I headed down our long driveway to the mailbox.  It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there.  My wife had cut the lawn earlier in the day and I noticed a dark smudge on the edge of the driveway where the grass was newly clipped.  I wondered if she had run over something–some bark or old leaves or some plastic bag type item.  As I got right up to it, however, I realized that it was nothing that the lawnmower had mangled.  It was a snipe.

I had never seen a snipe, but I had seen photographs, and I had seen woodcocks, which look similar.  It is a small bird with a long thin beak, colored to blend in to the grass and about the size of a robin.  I have heard snipes many times and, to be honest, I have seen them in flight, way up against the dim sky.  They have a funky mating display in the spring where they make eerie low whistling noises at the tail ends of the day.  They are either hiding in the grass or too difficult to see clearly, since they fly typically when the light is low.

So I was pretty ecstatic to see one of these puppies.  But it was not alone.  It had a mottled chick, fuzzy and still next to it.  I walked right up to them and they did not move.  Obviously they were working under the camouflage principal–Don’t move and no one will see us since we look just like everything around us.  Good theory, but since they were on the nipped grass, it wasn’t working so well.  I watched them for a while before continuing to the mailbox.

I assumed they would split when I returned but they were still there.  I watched them again for a while and they did not move.  I felt like I would stress them out so I split.  Then I thought I might get a photo, so I dropped the red envelope, picked up my camera and headed back down the driveway.  My spouse was on the phone so she missed out.  It was still there, so I took a couple of poor photos, getting as close as I dared and zooming in with our lame zoom lens as close as it would go.  I took four photographs, all of which, how to say this simply, suck.

By the time my wife was off the phone and tried to find our avian friends, they had decided to find some taller grass.  She was out of luck.  I would say at least I had the photos, but they were not much help.  So the lessons here:

  1. It is OK to forget things sometimes as forgetting may lead one in a direction that offers treasure
  2. Take time to look around
  3. Tell your wife to get off the phone if you see a snipe and its chick hanging out right next to the driveway without moving
  4. Get a better camera

Father’s Day is coming up.  Maybe I will drop some hints about that camera.  The movie, by the way–Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull–was pretty good.  They managed to bring our hero back as a much older man in a believable and fun way.  The story itself may not have been believable but hey, it’s just a movie.