I imagine the person who designed it going on to an amazingly successful full life — Nobel-Prize-winning scientist or somesuch — and still knows in their heart that this shirt will always be their greatest accomplishment.
Description: Tuscan Raider from the original Star Wars hoisting Lloyd Dobbler’s boom box over its head in homage to the iconic “In Your Eyes” closing scene from the Cameron Crowe-directed 80’s classic Say Anything.
It clicks on so many levels.
For starters, the juxtaposition of the Tuscan Raider’s Gaffi Stick for the boom box? Stop it. Wearing Lloyd’s coat? Get the f*ck out of here. Goddamn landspeeder replacing young John Cusack’s 1976 Chevy Malibu? Punch me in the face already.
Full disclosure I’m on V2 for this shirt.
Wore the first till it completely faded, which Lloyd’s love for Diane will never do.
Couple weeks ago we’re in the kitchen when Karry asks me about a charge on our credit card that looked suspicious.
Read aloud the name of a company she didn’t recognize.
“No, that’s me,” I said.
Was kinda’ hoping that would end her curiosity.
Had the opposite effect … like most of my good intentions.
“What did you buy?” she asked.
“It’s … a surprise.”
As an aside … that’s pretty good for me as far as comebacks under pressure go.
But it was late October. She knows I’m not that proactive with my holiday shopping.
“What did you buy?” she repeated.
“A t-shirt,” I confessed.
She: You bought a $35 t-shirt?
While it might seem like a yes or no question, the answer … was nuanced.
Me: No, I bought a $28 t-shirt.
She: (silence)
Me: Seven bucks for shipping.
Karry tends not to put on her cheaters to appreciate nuance.
For context, I love t-shirts.
My family prefers the word ‘addiction.’
It’s my only one.
Yep, T-shirts and postcards.
And, um, books.
T-shirts are among the reasons I don’t get tattoos.
I’m too easily seduced.
I fall in love too frequently … and fleetingly.
I mean, just when you see a design of a badass skull made up of tiny cats ($28 + $7 shipping), your feed serves up a silhouette of a man’s arm coming into frame to fist-bump a similarly silhouetted cat who looks like one of the cats who live in your house (Viktor).
The family staged an intervention a few years ago.
Unbeknownst to me, they harvested a bunch of t-shirts from my closet and had them made into a blanket … like parents do when their kids leave for college.
They were sneaky. Did it under the guise of my birthday and presented it as a ‘gift,’ … which forced me to suppress my immediate reaction, which was along the lines of, “You did … what ???!!!”
Some (most) of the shirts were still in regular rotation … including one of my all-time favorites: the orange GI Joe “Man of Action (With Lifelike Hair)” number that I found in a comic book store in Houston, Texas many years ago.
Joe’s head on the t-shirt had the same life-like hair as the action figure doll I had in the 70’s.
Glorious.
Over the years many wide-eyed smiles and fist-bumps from kindred spirits, most (all) middle-aged men, most (all) of whom proceeded to lose their sh*t when I pointed out that Joe’s coiffe was, in fact, life-like.
At night, when I am under the blanket, I can sometimes hear Joe softly sobbing.
Since the thoughtful-birthday-gift-slash-intrusive-intervention (still stings), we’ve operated under an uneasy detente.
For any new t-shirt I bring into the collection, I must remove one from my closet.
So I felt cornered when Karry called me out in the kitchen on my latest acquisition.
“It’ll be my last one of the year,” I blurted.
She: Yeah, right.
Me: No, seriously, last one of the year.
She: (silence)
Me: It’s only, like, two months. I can make it.
She: (silence)
While acknowledging that historical precedent would suggest, shall we say, an uphill climb, I pointed out that a little encouragement would, you know, go a long way.
She: You’ll never make it.
__
Couple weeks later, I’m downstairs when I hear yelling from the laundry room.
“Wait, did you get another t-shirt?”
While it seems like a yes or no question, the answer was … nuanced.
At the storytelling thing in the city I went to the night before, Jacob the producer gave me the t-shirt I won a couple months ago. They were out at the time.
I hadn’t bought it, so therefore had not violated the embargo.
I assured her that my t-shirt fast was still holding strong.
Then she did the thing she does sometimes … where she held her gaze a couple extra seconds without saying a word … letting me know she’ll be keeping an eye on me … until midnight strikes on Dec. 31.
Which I received as, you know, encouragement.
Recognizing that I still have about four weeks to go in my fast — which, let’s be honest here, will be brutal for the holiday algorithms ramping up to tempt me at every turn — I thought it’d be healthy to channel my energies away from my feeds and towards counting my blessings, by which I mean the treasures hanging in my closet.
Which history suggests are only ever a stealthy intervention away from being permanently removed from circulation.
So I’m here today to officially launch the TWELVE DAYS OF T-SHIRTS … a celebratory ‘greatest hits’ retrospective befitting, you know, a man of action with life-like hair.
The ones that bring me joy.
The ones that keep me in Cozy Mode as I clumsily navigate the world around me.
The ones that I impulse bought in spasms of poor decision-making somewhere between my second and third Moscow Mules.
Each one with its own story to tell.
Full disclosure: knowing that the odds of my following through to 12 are only marginally better than my resisting t-shirt temptation for the next four weeks … I will be receiving any and all feedback (including silence) as encouragement.
to a quick hot shower after running in the cold and wet at the track after sunset
to air-frying the steak quesadilla Peter made last night and set aside for me … and savoring it standing up in the kitchen
to sailing down Green Tree hill and through the tunnels to receive a weathered city that only glistens at night
to having a pick of parking spots next to the park where people are still pickleballing under the lights
to the luminous marquis of the old Garden Theater standing as proud reminder to never let our past define our possibility
to walking into Alphabet City and finding it full, just as the mighty Alexis was preambling the evening’s program
to grabbing the last seat at the bar, left open because it couldn’t see the stage … but it could see the drummer, which is exactly what you came to see
to a septet breaking into Perdido breaking like a fresh egg over your week’s bowl, seeping down and through all the way to the bottom
to the drummer excusing everyone but the piano, bass and guitar, leaving them to Nat King Cole the shit outta’ Stompin’ at the Savoy, painting life so beautiful in black and white
to the trombone player’s tone on I Can’t Get Started, as full and warm as the bourbon in my second Soothsayer
to the piano player pouring himself Body and Soul, exploring till he found that chord he knew was in there, causing the sax player bowing her head to smile around her mouthpiece … and look up and over to him and nod
to the in-betweens of the bandleader preaching sermons on St. Norman Granz and Jazz at the Philharmonic
to listening with an irrepressible smile of my own to 90 minutes of combinations, educations and improvisations orchestrated as neatly as a bento box, leaving me not full just satisfied
to driving back home in reverie in no great hurry
to pulling in the driveway pushing 9:30 and finding the outside light on and Peter shooting hoops
to stepping into a rebound and dishing his layup
to settling into old familiar rhythms
to knowing it’s in when it leaves your hand
to feeding him in stride and him splashing one after another after another
to seeing your November breath while staying out way past dark on a school night
to calling it, but not before each ending on a make
Left the house yesterday morning to meet my sister for coffee.
There are few more lovely reasons to leave the house on a Saturday morning.
Figured I’d swing by the post office first to pick up some stamps.
Planned to write my daughter her weekly postcard after having coffee with my big sister.
No line when I got inside.
Saw Maria standing behind the counter … which made me smile.
Maria’s worked at the post office for 28 years, if I remember correctly.
She told me last time I picked up a lasagna from her.
Not at the post office.
At her tender restaurant A la Maria’s, on LeMoyne, where she spends her weekday evenings … lovingly making her Mom’s old Italian recipes.
Maria’s place holds a special place in my heart.
When Karry and I got married and moved into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in East Washington, Maria’s mother ran a restaurant out of the basement of her home a couple blocks from us.
In our early Kraft-Mac-and-Cheese-Can-of-Peas-for-Dinner days, Paesano’s was our one monthly splurge.
Saturday night.
If the weather was nice we’d walk.
It was BYOB so we made a ritual of picking up a $10 bottle of wine.
Made sure we were in our seats by 7 o’clock, so we could watch X-Files re-runs on the big TV that hung in the dining area …
… while slow savoring food made with love from an Italian mother’s kitchen.
We’d take our time walking our full bellies back home — the next day’s leftover lunch in my left hand, Karry’s hand in my right.
Everything my Saturday night could ever want back then.
Maria’s lasagna is perfection.
Architectural is the best way to describe it.
Sharp corners. Rectilinear. Towering.
Don’t know how she does it.
Every lasagna we’ve ever made at home comes out of the pan (deliciously) gloopy.
Maria’s could serve as a tornado shelter.
Comes with about a 1/2 inch of standing red sauce pooling in the bottom of the to go container.
Every time I get home and crack open the styrofoam box, Pavarotti sings ‘La donna è mobile’ in my head.
Comes with two thin slices of Italian bread, essential sponges for sopping up every last drop from the plate when you’ve sadly run out of lasagna.
When I put my sopped-clean-post-lasagna plate in the dish washer, the other dishes are like, “I think you meant to put this back in the cabinet.”
So it should come as no surprise how it made me smile to see Maria behind the counter at the post office yesterday morning.
“Miss Maria,” I greeted.
“Mr. Riddell.”
“Postcard stamps?” I asked.
“Cleaned out. Election folks bought ‘em all up.”
“Awwww. Really?”
Asked her when they might get more in. She said they’re on order, from Kansas.
“They send them regular mail … so, who knows?”
Coming from a post office person, the “Who knows?” struck me as funny.
She said I could try the McMurray store. They have everything there.
I thanked her for letting me know, and exhaled defeatedly, as I didn’t have the time nor inclination for a special trip.
Was just about to say out loud that my visit wasn’t in vain, though, since I got to see her …
… when Maria interjected.
“Otherwise, you’d have to go two busses and some grapes.”
“Uh …. I’m sorry, what?”
“To make up the 61 cents,” she said.
Pre-caffeinated, I wasn’t following at all.
She pulls out her drawer, takes out a couple packs of stamps.
Starts to do math.
Explains the busses are 28 cents …
“So two of those …. plus a five cent stamp,” she says, holding up a pack of grape stamps.
“So you’d need a lot of stamps,” she chuckled.
“Wait …,” I said. “Postcard stamps are 61 cents?”
“Yep. Regular stamps are 78 cents, post cards are 61.”
I had no idea.
In my mind I thought postcard stamps were like 19 cents.
Sixty-one cents … for such little real estate.
I felt dumb … for having hundreds of post cards at home.
She started to put the booklets back in her drawer, when I interjected.
“I’ll take the busses and grapes,” I said.
“Oh, you want to do that?” she asked.
“Just to get me through today,” I said.
What I meant was that I’d just take a booklet of each as an interim solution.
“Oh, so you just want enough for one?” she asked.
I didn’t think you could do that.
I smiled at the smile on her face as I watched her tearing off a postcard’s worth of individual stamps from their booklets.
“I guess I’m going to have to write smaller,” I said out loud.
She broke apart the three I needed, laid them loose on the counter.
Then an idea popped into her head.
“Here’s what you do ….”
I watched her pick up a bus, peel it off, and carefully lay it across the other bus.
Wasn’t sure what she was doing … maybe just consolidating onto one piece rather than sending me out with three loose stamps?
Then she peeled the grape and surgically laid it across the second bus.
“There …. That’s what you do,” she said.
Proudly.
“Leaves you more room to write,” she said.
Oh.
“So you can lay them across each other like that on the post card?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said. “Only the ‘USA’ needs to be showing.”
And I giggled out loud … like a five-year-old who’d just seen an adult perform magic.
You should see what she does with a lasagna, I’m tellin’ ya.
In the town where I live, there’s a person who will not only let a clueless, pre-caffeinated little brother cobble together a postcard’s worth of stamps … but will take the time to bunch ‘em as tight as the law allows … so he has as much room as possible to write to his daughter about how much he misses her.
__
And after just the loveliest visit with my big sister …
… I took out my favorite pen …
… and the postcard I’d plucked special from my massive, impractical inventory …
… took my time writing small and neat …
… doing my best to make every word count …
… with all the reverence I could muster …
… as I imagined a mother might …
… writing down her favorite recipes for posterity.
Ten years later I came along … and surprised all involved parties.
My three sisters and brother are all between 10 and 15 years older than me.
I grew up … looking up.
To a person they held up their ends of the big sibling bargain.
Kim bought me my first album at the National Record Mart. Let me pick it out myself. Still remember the words to every song.
Laurie didn’t shoo me away when she’d invite her pretty friends over (swoon).
Kenny would take me with him on his pilgrimages to WVU when he was teaching there. Always let me pick out some Mountaineer gear at the bookstore.
Missy taught me my letters, numbers and punctuation marks by drawing them in soap on my back during bath time and having me guess what she drew. When my kids were little, I employed the Missy Method.
As a bonus … I knew all the cuss words before my friends did. As I remember it, Kim and Kenny did the heavy lifting there.
At home the five of us were spread across the three upstairs bedrooms.
Kim, the oldest, had a small bedroom to herself. Laurie and Liss shared the big bedroom across the hall. My brother took me in during the expansion draft of 1970.
After graduating high school, Kim joined the Marines (um, as one does). Laurie, popular with the boys, got married a couple years after she graduated.
Kenny went away to college when he graduated, which left just me and Liss at home.
I had just turned seven.
Towards the end of the summer Kenny went away to school, Liss spent a week of vacation away from home (with my aunt, I think).
It was the first time I had to sleep upstairs by myself.
I couldn’t do it.
Scared me.
The wooden floors creaked.
And it was really dark in my room.
There was a light in the hall but it was too bright to keep my door open, so I’d have to close it tight. I could only see a sliver of light between the bottom of the door and the floor. I was always afraid I’d see shadows of footsteps in the hall … like I saw on a scary TV show once.
There were two, big deep closets in my bedroom. I had clothes in one, the other one I was told not to open. Always imagined monsters lived in that one.
Dad was on ‘tuck-in’ duty that summer.
It was also the summer he taught me the Our Father.
I remember us taking turns with the lines.
Me: Our Father, who art in heaven …
He: … hallowed by thy name.
etc.
Once I had it down, I’d vary the line breaks.
He’d pick up where I left off.
Me: Thy will …
He: … be done.
Me: Give us this day our daily …
He: … bread.
Kept us payin’ attention.
I’d follow it up with the requisite “God Blesses,” starting with “Mom, Dad, Lissy, Laurie, Kimmy and Kenny,” and work backwards from there.
It’s funny the things we remember.
The first night Liss was away, after trading lines and tucking in, Dad went back downstairs.
I lasted maybe 10-15 minutes with the creaky floors, the light under the door … whatever was lurking in the closet.
Got outta bed and trudged back down the 14 steps.
Told my parents that I missed Liss and was too scared to sleep upstairs by myself.
I think I lobbied to sleep on the couch in the living room … unsuccessfully.
I remember Dad walking me back up.
Tucking me in again.
Closing the door behind him.
And going only as far as the tiny hallway, which was really just a landing.
Sat down on the top step.
He’d brought his Bible with him.
Cracked it open and read under the hall’s bright light.
I couldn’t see him.
Even if I left the door open, the top of the steps were parallel to my room, hidden from my view.
So I’d call out … to make sure he hadn’t gone back downstairs.
“Still there, Dad?”
“Yep,” he’d reply.
“Still here.”
Even though I couldn’t see him, just knowing he was there … made things better.
I liked his chances against the monster lurking in my closet.
I don’t know how long he stayed that first night.
Until I fell asleep is all I know.
I had trouble falling asleep every night Missy was away.
After we’d “Our Father,” Dad would close the door behind him, go sit on the top step and read his Bible.
There were at least a couple of nights — maybe all of ’em — I couldn’t fall asleep right away.
I was a big worrier back then.
On those nights I’d test the emergency broadcast system more than once.
Sometimes a few times.
“Still there, Dad?”
“Yep … Still here.”
No matter how late it got.
No matter how many times I asked.
Each time … “Still here.”
Not sure how long I made him sit there.
Several chapters worth is my best guess … which is more Bible ground than I’ve covered in a while.
Until I fell asleep is all I know.
__
Last Sunday would have been Dad’s 98th birthday.
My sisters and brother were blowing up the group chat all morning.
We’re about 50 years removed from our last sleepover.
To a person they are still holding up their ends of the big sibling bargain.
I think of my Dad every day.
When I hear certain tunes.
When I retell the same stories.
When the world gets scary.
When I remember to say the Our Father and God Blesses in my head before bed.
I can still hear him finishing the lines sometimes.
When I can’t fall back asleep.
I can’t see him.
But I know he’s there.
In my mind he’s sitting on the top step reading his Bible under the bright light.
Letters for Maggie 