A place for the discussion of all things not closely related to the sport and its competitive side. (Locked down several times a year during the major championships)
lonewolf wrote:Marlow, I will bring you a Texas Relays shirt so you too can converse with strangers. I think I can spare an old grubby one.)
The older and grubbier the better!
Isn't that always true? Not sure why my wife can not understand that my old teeshirts and shirts are the best ones. About 2 years ago, she threw out my favorite shirt - got it in college in 1972 - it was only 34 years old, and was great - nice and old and grubby, lots of holes in it. Built-in air conditioning.
Anyone else have old teeshirt stories? There was that Seinfeld (part of my favorite one, actually) where Jerry's favorite teeshirt didn't make it thru the wash - Golden Boy.
bambam1729 wrote: my wife can not understand that my old teeshirts and shirts are the best ones. About 2 years ago, she threw out my favorite shirt -
I was saving some really ratty 1970s t-shirts, esp. my college ones, for 'special occasions' (I'm not sure what would have merited their wearing, considering their holiness (in both meanings of the word)), but when I came home one day, my wife was using them to wash her car!!! I really wanted to go upstairs to her closet, haul out her wedding dress, drag it down to the driveway and offer it to her as a drying rag!! I would have too, except she probably would have said, "Oh no, I may have to be wearing that again soon!"
The oldest T-shirt I have retained is a circa 1953 gold on black US Army West Point T.
My oldest semi-active shirt is a faux 1952 Helsinki shirt my kids had made up for me in 1968.. It must have been a high quality shirt because it is in remarkaby good condition although I seldom wear these days, except as an inside joke. Size Medium, worn proudly when I had pecs and abs, have mysteriously become annoyingly restrictive.
The Club Northwest office is filled with Bill Roe's t-shirt collection. I haven't ever taken the time to look through them, but I bet there are some good stories there.
I have quite a collection myself, well over 100 shirts from the past 8 or so years. I need to get some quilts made!
My oldest T is from the '77 European Cup. Great logo. My track meet tees are just that, track meets only. That way they don't disenegrate with washing. At the trials I will use my 5 WC shirts, my Gotzis '02 shirt and two WCup/ECup shirts to be named later. I do have a couple 49er Ts and a couple rec league BB jerseys, but they don't get any use at all.
My rattiest are the from the Far-side Fun Run an annual event put on by the California Academy of Sciences. My oldest track one is from the Edinburgh meet when Johnson ran 19.85. I helped out at the meet and got a complimentary T-shirt. I also have one of the old tandf Darkwing T-shirts knocking about somewhere.
I've got a Louisville Metro Marathon t-shirt from 1976 or 1977 and a tangerine orange one from an August 1977 Yes "Going for the One" concert, possibly a Who concert shirt from 1982.
A few years ago I put all of my shirts on a full rotation basis (fillling just over 4 dresser drawers now) so I would not wear out my favorites. I still have started loosing some of the oldest form just plain disintergration. Fortunately I rarely run races anymore, so the collection does not grow.
I found warm-fuzzy way to cull my shirt and hat collection a few years ago.
A track official friend, now deceased, had a son in the Peace Corp in Africa, (Gabon, I think). We rounded up more than 200 duplicate and non-significant T-shirts and collared shirts and a hundred caps and sent them to his son to distribute to his community.. they were a resounding success..
I think it is time to do it again. Anyone have friends or relatives in Peace Corp?
My oldest running shirt is from the 1974 Charleston, W.Va. Distance Run (15 miles).
My oldest racwalking shirt is from the 1979 Pan-Am 20k walk trials. (I had a lousy race.)
My oldest t-shirt of all is one of Frank Zappa from his Grand Wazoo tour (I think this was 1972.) Saw him at Madison Square Garden.
lonewolf wrote:I found warm-fuzzy way to cull my shirt and hat collection a few years ago. A track official friend, now deceased, had a son in the Peace Corp in Africa, (Gabon, I think). We rounded up more than 200 duplicate and non-significant T-shirts and collared shirts and a hundred caps and sent them to his son to distribute to his community.. they were a resounding success..
I think it is time to do it again. Anyone have friends or relatives in Peace Corp?
When I was in the Peace Corps in Nepal back in the 70's, one time I said I was not that wealthy, by US standards, to a Nepali, he laughed and said that was silly, look at all the T-shirts you own! Which was probably 5, including a Bix 7 miler shirt.
