How many t-shirts do you own?
We live in a culture that produces more t-shirts than anyone knows what to do with. Anyone who spends time sorting through the bargain bins at any thrift store knows this for a fact of life. More importantly, the themes that appear on the front of the t-shirts would tell any sociologist a great deal about our society.
I like buying t-shirts and cutting them up into strips and knitting them up into rugs and place mats. T-shirts come in great colors, and you can get a lot of knitting materials for very little money. And you pay the same price for an extra-large t-shirt that you pay for a small. You get more knitting materials from the extra large. I love it when I find a whole set of t-shirts left over from some event, because then I have a block of color that I can use to make patterns. Usually the ones that are left over are the very large sizes and the very small sizes. I’ll take both, but I’m at my most gleeful when I get ten extra-large t-shirts in one color at a dollar a piece.
Recently, I ran through a rack of t-shirts searching for extra-large shirts in shades of green. I was amazed at how many of the shirts had sports logos on them. Apparently we have a large number of sports teams wearing matching t-shirts that after the season get sent to thrift shop land. Second in quantity were shirts from marathons of various kinds. Sometimes the shirts are designated “staff,” and one wonders if the wearer was “staff” for a day at a specific event, and how it went. Did he or she hand out water to those jogging past? Did he or she hand out t-shirts to those jogging past? Or, when the shirt says “staff” followed by the name of a child care center, did the previous wearer leave employment and send the shirt off to thrift store land with gratitude that that particular phase of life was over? I know that every time I had a job that required me to wear a t-shirt with a logo on it, I resented having to buy them, and got rid of them quickly.
Another type of shirt is the vacation/holiday t-shirt. They portray some feature of a particular vacation location with the name of the location emblazoned across the t-shirt in large letters. I’m intrigued by the number and variety of vacation t-shirts which end up in thrift stores. I know I own a few that have been given to me by relatives who couldn’t think of anything better to give me. I’ve even bought a few. Judging by the number on the racks, most people don’t remember their vacations, or their relatives’ vacations, fondly.
There are t-shirts that advertise for local hot spots—bars, clubs, schools, and day camps. Most of them are pretty tacky. The day camp shirts tend to be in pretty tough shape, which speaks well for the day camps. I won’t even comment on the bar shirts. The potential for making tasteless jokes is too high.
Occasionally, very rarely, one will find a gift: a t-shirt that really says something, or is visually satisfying. These shirts tend to be good quality cotton. Often they have that somewhat faded look that only the best cotton gets. I found two recently. One had a quote and a drawing from Albert Einstein. The other was from Ashland Shakespeare Company. I purchased both these t-shirts, but they didn’t get cut up and turned into knitting material. They were handed on to friends who loved them.
What is the lesson here? At the risk of sounding pretentious, I could say something about our disposable culture. I could point out that in the midst of so many t-shirts proclaiming messages that simply aren’t worth saving, one still finds the piece of real culture and knowledge that is worth passing on. I could say all that, but I won’t. Because, like almost everyone else, I have a drawer full of the meaningless kind, and they all mean something to me. If they didn’t, I’d get rid of them.
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Megan Havens is the chief administrator of Nestucca Bay Waldorf School, which exists in blog space, and is the school she wishes she could teach at. She has too many children and step-children, but no grandchildren. Her youngest son says that her short height matches her short temper. She says that 5’6” isn’t short.