On Favorite Shirts

Most of us have a favorite shirt. You know the one; it’s comfortable, roomy, and slimming, and when you put it on you feel like everything is right with the world. In addition, since we tend to hang on to our favorite shirts as long as we can, there’s also a pretty good chance that it’s incredibly old and falling apart, to the point where if you were to give it to a homeless man for clothing, he’d probably cringe and use it for nothing more than blowing his nose.

Personally, I don’t remember many of my favorite shirts from my childhood. However, I do recall that once my mom made me a Spider-Man costume for Halloween that I thought was the best thing ever, and I think I wore it for many days afterwards. So I assume I was a super-hero shirt guy. Also, this picture tends to support that theory:

As an adult, my favorite shirts have tended to come from concerts that I’ve attended. One was purchased at the Alabama Farewell Tour stop in Milwaukee. It was actually a pretty cheesy shirt, as it included a giant picture of all four band members on the back, but I still loved it, and I wore it all the time. Eventually, however, after many years it basically fell apart, and if I ever wore it in public after that, people assumed that I’d either survived a plane crash or had just escaped from being buried alive, and they kept trying to take me to the hospital. So, unfortunately, I had to retire it.

Luckily, I’ve been able to replace it with a shirt I bought at a Blackhawk concert. For those of you who don’t know, Blackhawk was a semi-popular band back in the nineties who’s still touring to this day, despite the fact that they’re getting pretty old. (We’ve started to call them “Fathawk”) Still, they put on a darn good show, and so, during a concert I attended in the Twin Cities a few years back, I felt obliged to buy one of their shirts, and it’s turned out to be one of the better moves of my life. (Maybe that says more about my life than it does the shirt.)

I’m not sure why I like it so much. Perhaps it’s the simplicity, as it’s all black, save the stylized word “Blackhawk” and a small logo on the front. It’s definitely a lot less gaudy than the Alabama shirt, which was purchased during my younger and wilder days. Since then, however, as I’ve grown older, I’ve become drawn to blending into my surrounding, as opposed to sticking out, and the Blackhawk shirt is a good reflection of that soon-I’ll-be-a-cranky-curmudgeon-nobody-wants-to-associate-with attitude.

However, there is a bit of a problem. You see, even though the Blackhawk shirt is pretty low-key, I still feel like I’m past the age where I want to walk around advertising a musical act. (The exception to this rule is my George Strait hoodie, but you have to make exceptions when it comes to George Strait.) So, I never actually wear the Blackshirt shirt unless it's under flannel or sweatshirts, which means that nobody actually ever sees it. Now, this is totally fine with me, but I just find it a bit ironic that my favorite shirt is one that nobody knows exists.

Anyway, I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if you ever see me wearing a flannel or a hoodie, feel free to ask me if I’m wearing the Blackhawk shirt underneath. If you do, then I’ll know that you actually read this blog, and I’ll probably give you a big hug for being so supportive.

So until then, Goodbye Says it All!