A Classic Sweatshirt

This weekend I worked at de-cluttering my dressing room. I pulled a box from the corner and sorted through papers and pictures, change purses and key chains, allotting things to the appropriate pile: recycle, garbage, keep. On top of all the mishmash in the box sat, roughly folded, my favorite sweatshirt off all time. I haven’t worn it probably since the turn of the century.

I got it in 1989, my second summer in Maine, the summer after my freshman year of college. A big, royal blue shirt with not-too-tight cuffs and a bottom that looked gathered but hung straight. On the front in white iron-on in all caps, the shirt advertised MAINE. It was not too soft and not too full and fluffy. It hung on my shoulders just right and was the perfect weight to wear year round. I’m wearing it in three quarters of the pictures taken of me in college. In the fall I wore it with jeans to cross campus. When the weather turned cooler, I wore a turtle neck under. Even with a turtle neck, my sweatshirt wasn’t too bulky to fit a fleece jacket over top for really cold weather. When I drove myself and some friends to Florida the spring just after graduation, I wore it with shorts. I also wore it with shorts when my roommates and I (and everyone else on campus) took to the streets to celebrate UD’s win and a guaranteed spot into the NCAA’s Sweet 16 in 1990.

In fall 1995, homesick and lonely, the shirt offered me comfort while I slept in it my first night in Guatemala, where I stayed with a host family for six weeks taking language instruction from a local school. In summer ‘96 it kept me warm during the cool nights on Inishmore, an Aran Island off the southwest coast of Ireland. Late in ‘94, I wore it over a thermal and under a coat on my chilly hike up Cotopaxi, the world’s highest active volcano, located in Ecuador. I could continue and list every vacation I’ve taken from the time I got the shirt to when I stopped wearing it because I took it with me everywhere.

Its royal blue has faded to a less regal shade. The MAINE lettering is now barely visible. I cut the cuffs off about a year before I retired the shirt because they were so frayed. The collar has lost its shape, like its been stretched over too many heads. But it was my favorite, and getting rid of it is hard. So many memories are wrapped up in that shirt, yet I know throwing it away will not deplete my experiences. I’ll still remember the good times I had while wearing it.

Spend the next weekend hiking in a state park or go to a festival at least a two-hour’s drive away. Wear your favorite jeans or a just-right baseball cap and make your own experiences. No shirt required.