Memories and Memorials

I have, for many years, attributed a great deal of meaning to certain items of clothing. I'm sure many of us have a "lucky" item or a "favorite" shirt. I ascribe meaning to items with the nostalgic memory that grows events into grander, more idealized phenomena than their reality may suggest. The absence, then, of these items can testify to an event or series of events that culminated in the disappearance of them; in this the items acquire immortality.

When I was a kid, my most important items of clothing were baseball caps. I had three significantly favorite ones: a Baltimore Orioles painter's cap I picked up at Cleveland Stadium a week after my nine-year-old draft into the Little League Orioles; a pink Notre Dame cap I wore in junior high; and a white, pinstriped Cleveland Indians hat that was filthy to the point of my strapping it to a pot and washing it in the dishwasher on a weekly basis. I wore that one throughout high school, and in a curious manner; always on the back of my head, bill aiming up, with bangs falling down the sides. Yeah, it was pretty much about the most effeminate way to wear a baseball cap. Hell, I didn't know any better. I don't know the fate of any of the three; I believe two of them were lost at Cedar Point on the Corkscrew and one simply fell apart and was thrown out.

Later in my life, other items developed an awareness and knowledge that their absence attest to and amplify. An example of this is my "lucky boxers." I don't wear boxers anymore, and wonder how I ever dealt with the baggy, uncomfortable things before discovering the trunks I wear now. Yet this pair was a plaid Joe Boxer pair I received one Christmas, and were my best-fitting and favorite pair. At Progman's bachelor party, I parted with them. Our party ran into a bachelorette party on a scavenger hunt-esque project; the bride-to-be was in search of someone who would trade underwear. I was lit enough to engage in the trade, and spent the rest of the night commando with a pink g-string in my back pocket. There's even a photo of us post-trade (god, I was fat and ugly back then):



An item I'd had far longer than that pair of boxers are the "Forbidden Shorts." Either berrydip, sickdogg, or Joel Hammon coined the phrase. Forbidden Shorts were a navy pair of mesh shorts that were part of our high school tennis uniform. The title came from the dictum from my father, our coach, that they not be worn outside of officially sanctioned competition. Of course, they were a great pair of athletic shorts, with pockets and everything, and I've worn them ever since for most strenuous physical activity. Except I don't have them anymore; I parted with them (along with another pair of underwear) in the midst of an interaction with a good friend. I'm sure she'd return the Forbidden Shorts if I asked for them, but their absence stands as a testament to an event difficult to reify in my memory.

Of course, we all know about the red trunks, which have been replaced, but inadequately. The original pair were taken away long ago by Bush Voter, and I think that series of events has been written about far too extensively.

Which brings us to the green jacket.

My friend Lisa likes to refer to my green jacket as "elbow patches." Indeed, the corduroy jacket features lovely green suede elbow patches, as was the apparellistic parlance of the times: 1975. Thirty years ago, my father was a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University, and wore this jacket often when he taught. Years later, he handed it down to me, and I dutifully wore it every Friday of an OU football game for six years. My students have always come to expect me and my a-bit-too-big green jacket on Fridays in the fall.

But today I wasn't wearing my green jacket.

I'm pretty sure I don't have the green jacket anymore. I came to this realization yesterday, while looking for my ATM card. My green jacket usually hangs out in the back seat of my Jetta. I put it on when I get to work on Friday, and take it off when I get back to my car. It's too hot to wear anywhere else. Yet my green jacket was not in the back seat of my car; I realized that I had a faint memory, a silhouette, even, of a girl wearing it. Saturday night. The black heels still in my back seat have served to represent a unilateral barter, it appears, and while I'm relatively sure the jacket was absconded with sans malicious intent, considering how the individual who took it has my phone number, and yet has not called, it seems I might be sans jacket in perpetuity. Especially considering how she lives in Brooksville, a considerable distance from here.

And thus my jacket's absence comes to represent an evening of poor decisions and milquetoast debauchery. I hope the individual whom I believe keeps retention of my jacket contacts me, or I at least see her at the Hangout again. I'd like to get the jacket back. I'll even trade her a jacket, in the style of Maude Lebowski, one that wasn't given to me by my father and thus "[doesn't] have sentimental value for me."

So if you know a tall, attractive blonde in Brooksville named Sarah with an H, tell her I want my jacket back.