If you have ever, on a late Friday afternoon in fall, sat in the front seat of a school bus filled with teenage energy, sound, togetherness as they shout again and again
We are the Spartans, mighty, mighty Spartans (or Comets, or Chiefs or whatever) again and again and again with continued exclamation marks, headed toward the game (football, basketball, soccer) that turns even your quietest student into a bundle of quivering emotions…
Well, if you have had that experience you would not be surprised to wake up decades later with those sounds echoing through your morning. I relive those imprinted hours: me, a quiet introspective English teacher, dressed in the appropriate colors, swept along to Friday night battles between young bodies and school spirit. I don’t shout, but I do smile a lot because the bus home will be quieter no matter how the game turns out.
Today I realized those were my first experiences with using my body as a bulletin board advertising my allegiances to anything.
Now we have had explosions of advertising everything we have either wanted or dreamed of or didn’t know existed, advertised every place imaginable. A huge industry. Marlon Brando and James Dean popularized t-shirts as clothing to be worn without a shirt but with style. Then the hippie movement introduced decorations, tie-dye, and slogans. A new age was born.
Once we “knew” a person by a handshake, a look into the eyes, intuition. Today we learn about each other by t-shirts. Birth state, school, favorite food, hospital stays, chief interests, books we like, favorite dogs or cats, anniversaries, travel destinations, political interests… just about everything about us can be found on the t-shirts on our backs or in our closets.
I came slowly to t-shirt identity. I had them but wore them inside-out in public until I moved to Eureka Springs where I learned the amusement of the many ways of being “out” in just about anything. I have two favorites:
One is in admiration of both Mark Twain and the best of all critters, a dog: Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
I’ve had a long life with dogs I’ve loved as much as any human and know he’s right.
The second is brief, snarky, true, and I think witty: I think therefore I am a Democrat.
I’m going on my third or fourth generation of this shirt, always light yellow with blue printing, and I’ve given them as presents. I would not mind going to the crematorium wearing this.
The masses of protests this year have been good for the t-shirt industry where they equal the signs and banners in originality and fervor. They are hard to ignore as even the fascists in the White House will do just about anything to keep them out of the news.
The universe if filled with irony. A quiet, bookish old woman now trying to find heads for her version (F*DT) of the silly red cap decorating a flabby-faced fascist.
School starting before Labor Day? That’s its own kind of cruel irony.
Marie Howard