(My high school letter jacket.)
This is probably the dorkiest post I’ve ever written. Recently, my parents came to visit and my mom brought me a bunch of things from my old bedroom closet, including my high school letter jacket. I hadn’t thought about that thing in years, and now it’s sitting in my dining room while I figure out what to do with it.
The jacket has vinyl sleeves, made in the USA from “recycled fibers” and “other unknown fibers,” and it’s starting to break down. The sleeves are excreting some kind of greasy substance that feels, when you touch it, like cooking oil. I’ve tried cleaning the sleeves with a variety of different cleaners, and that gross, sticky feeling comes right back once the sleeves are dry. At this point, I’ll probably have to take it to the dry cleaners so they can properly care for it.
Not that anyone wants it.
(I lettered in Speech.)
I went to a really big Texas football school (think Friday Night Lights times ten) and letter jackets were a big deal in my day. I don’t know if high school kids still get letter jackets, but it was definitely a competition when I was in school in the mid-1990s. I was active in Speech, which is saying a lot right there, and I think I earned my letter after a UIL tournament. Ryan was in band and had a red letter jacket that was soft and supple to the touch, but my jacket was academic, so I got grey.
I remember being so unimpressed with it, the puffy sleeves that didn’t bend, the itchy wool collar, and the awful, fake leather smell. I hung it outside for days on end to get rid of that odor, and then I barely wore the jacket at all, despite the fact that I had worked hard for it. I never wore Ryan’s jacket because I was a die-hard feminist and could earn my own jacket, thank you very much, but mostly, I just wore the winter coat my parents bought for me.
(NFL Pins.)
What’s hilarious to me now is the jacket itself. I mean, it says “Speech” right there, loud and clear, for everyone to see. And those pins? Those are NFL pins, as in the National Forensic League, which members of high school Speech and Debate teams join. You get points every time you compete in a tournament, and so many points equals a pin. I was mediocre, at best, but I worked hard and earned quite a few pins. Exciting, isn’t it?
David Sedaris, the hilarious author, recently shed a bit of light on the world of Speech and Debate when he mentioned it in the opening to his newest book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. My days of competing in Poetry, Prose, and Oratory are a thing of the past now, but it was fun reliving those memories for a moment when I read his book this summer. He was just becoming famous when I was in high school, but his essays would most definitely make for entertaining competition pieces, read out of a small black binder.
Don’t get me wrong, Speech and Debate clubs are great organizations, and lots of talented kids go on to become actors, lawyers, and, I’m guessing, politicians. Oprah Winfrey herself is an NFL member, as my Speech coach always told me, and supposedly, she gets points for every public speech she gives. I wonder how many pins she has.
That’s basically the story of my high school letter jacket and how I came to earn it. I know my boys won’t be interested in it, and I barely wore it myself. But it’s a piece of my history, so I guess I’ll have it cleaned and store it away. Maybe one day I’ll have a granddaughter, and she’ll ask me about it. Who knows.
Fall is here and it’s lovely, but the time change always throws me for a loop. We planned to take it easy last weekend after the whirlwind of the past few weeks, and Sunday, we took a little drive to Rockdale, a small town I’d heard of but never visited.
Truth be told, it wasn’t our first choice, but all of our favorite day trip locales are reeling from the recent floods. Smithville, Wimberley, and Kyle got hit really hard and are in a period of mourning and recovery. It’s not the time to explore downtown areas in search of hidden treasures. There’s a feeling of sadness hanging over Austin and the entire Central Texas region these days, as our neighbors begin to dig themselves out from the damage of a storm that came quietly in the night, the water rising higher and higher while we slept.
(Pretty fall colors.)
These things seem to strike hardest where people don’t have much, and residents were stuck on rooftops for hours, waiting for help. A few people lost their lives as their cars were swept away in the dark, the drivers unable to see the rising creeks and rivers as they headed to work in the early morning rain. A mother, her baby, a pastor, a teacher, all taken by the water. It is so heartbreaking and unimaginable, especially in the middle of such a long, hot drought.
(Butterfly-friendly plants.)
My boys don’t know about these things yet; they are still too young. And it’s my job to protect them and to keep them young for as long as I can. So we drove out to Rockdale, past the soaked fields and the puddles reflecting in the sun, and ate lunch at our normal spot, the local Dairy Queen. It wasn’t the easiest lunch, and things seemed pretty stressful for some reason. We couldn’t wait to get out of there and on with our day.
(Visitors in the butterfly garden.)
But then we found a lovely park, shaded with lots of pretty trees, three playscapes, and a butterfly garden. The boys ran happily and found four older girls to play with. One girl, watching over her younger sister, was friendly and talked to me. She said the boys both look like me, and she was patient with them when they bossed her around. Most of the children were there by themselves, but it felt safe, in the park nestled in the middle of a neighborhood in that tiny Texas town.
(The boys thoroughly enjoying themselves.)
We stayed a while and enjoyed the cooler weather, the acorns, and the bright sun shining after we moved the clocks back that morning. Ryan walked around the park taking pictures, and when we got home, I found these.
Our trip wasn’t the best we’ve taken, and our thoughts were elsewhere that day, but these pictures are lovely and capture a beauty that we didn’t see then. We came home to our warm house by the creek that didn’t fill, where our boys sleep safe at night. It was a good day, and I want to save these memories of it.
If you’d like to help the residents of Central Texas as they recover from the recent floods, you can find more information here.
(My new Faces Print Tee by People Tree.)
I first heard about People Tree, the British fair trade fashion company, through Leah’s wonderful blog, Style Wise. She featured the brand and I fell in love with their Faces Print Tee back in May. Eventually, I found a lovely People Tree dress at ModCloth, and it fits my style perfectly. But recently, I decided to buy a few things directly from the UK site, and this tee was first on my list. It arrived last week, along with some pants that didn’t quite fit and are going back, but I’m really pleased with the top.
It has sort of an 80s cut, with very short, wide sleeves, so I will wear the top with a cardigan or something underneath. I paired the tee with my favorite jeans, booties, and an old black cardigan for warmth. I debated adding the sparkly necklace, since the adorable faces are the real focus of this outfit, but it felt more my style with the necklace on, so I left it.
(A detail of the Faces Print Tee by People Tree.)
The pattern is so fun and artsy, and I love all of the precious faces on it. I think my boys will have fun looking at the faces, too. And as it turns out, Leah also ordered this same tee, and it looks amazing on her!
