The Shirts We Inherited
Keeping a decades-old clothing collection alive, and the memory of the person who started it
Yesterday I woke up and threw on a deep green T-shirt that’s four sizes too big on me. It has a pocket on the left breast that’s embroidered with the word FLYING, punctuated with a little airplane.
The sleeves fall to my elbows and the hem goes to about mid-thigh. If I bought it from an upscale fashion brand, it’d probably be marketed as a mini dress. But I didn’t buy this shirt at all — it’s one of the many, many T-shirts I inherited from my dad after he died.
I’ve said before that most people don’t think about the things they’ll leave behind when they pass away. My dad certainly didn’t, and in the wake of his death, my family unearthed drawers and closets full of his clothes that we didn’t know what to do with.
There was a surplus of work polos, sweats, slacks, ties, socks, underwear, and dress shoes. We found probably five pairs of identical, white Nike Air Monarchs (his favorite casual shoe), plus his hat collection of baseball caps and beanies. And, of course, dozens and dozens of T-shirts.
Dad was one of those people who loved buying souvenir shirts to remind himself of a place he’d visited or an institution he cared about. He had tees with the names of national parks, sports teams, and the places my sisters and I went to high school and college.
At the time he was buying the shirts, I thought little of this. But as someone who now owns a huge stock of his shirt collection, it’s kind of cool to have a wearable museum of his favorite places and things.
The particular green shirt I wore yesterday was some kind of merch from FLYING magazine. My dad was a big fan of airplanes (I heard a story once that he wanted to be a pilot, but never asked him about it).
Airplane stuff was a familiar sight in our home growing up — think model planes, artwork with planes, bedding with planes, and Microsoft Flight Simulator on the computer. He also took us to many different air shows and museums through the years.
There’s a second, lighter green shirt in my closet that says FLYING Oshkosh, which I assume is some kind of special edition FLYING magazine shirt related to EAA AirVenture. For those of you who don’t know, this is a giant air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin that happens every year. It’s like the ultimate air show for airplane nerds.
I think my dad went once, but it doesn’t really matter either way. The shirt will always remind me of him because there’s no other reason why I would have an article of clothing with the title of an airplane magazine or a big air show on it.
I also have dad’s Detroit Tigers and Detroit Pistons shirts in my closet because I had to keep those. The Pistons shirt especially cracks me up because they’re a pretty mid basketball team and I love wearing it in public. It’s like a bat signal for Detroiters.
Every now and then I get a comment on it from someone who is also from the Metro Detroit area. Not a Pistons fan, necessarily (do those even exist?), but just someone who’s familiar with the team because they’re from their hometown. You don’t really wear Pistons gear unless you have some connection to Detroit — they’re not a good enough team for anyone to root for for fun.
My dad was also a big Life Is Good fan. In a lot to the pictures we have of him, he’s wearing one of his many Life Is Good tees with an optimistic phrase or cartoon on it. I gave a few of these to Ryan, who wears them as pajama shirts.
The funny thing is that Ryan actually owns more dad shirts than me now. That’s because my dad was only one size bigger than Ryan, so I scooped up a bunch of shirts for him when my mom was moving and cleaning out the house last year.
Ryan now sports a lot of my dad’s treasures: his souvenir shirts from the Meteor Crater in Arizona and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee, a few nice Patagonia tops I never saw him wear, and the extensive Life Is Good shirt collection.
Ryan also regularly wears the coveted Marquette University crewneck sweatshirt that my dad bought when he dropped me off for my freshman year of college. That sweatshirt was one I used to wear regularly, but Ryan borrowed it once when we were dating and just … never gave it back. (Whoops, now we live together so it doesn’t matter.)
The odd thing about all this is that Ryan never got to meet my dad, even though he regularly wears the man’s clothes. But Ryan kind of gets to meet him through the shirts. Dad’s collection was extensive enough that it shows a lot about who he was and what he liked when he was alive.
And there’s also something comforting about seeing my partner give my dad’s clothes a second life. Those shirts are familiar to me and I wouldn’t have wanted to see them abandoned at a thrift store. Plus, a lot of them are too beat up to sell (I’ve had to sew together quite a few armpits) and would have probably ended up in a landfill.
I like to think my dad would be happy that we didn’t just toss the clothes he spent decades collecting. All those cherished memories could very well be rotting in a dump right now, and he’d have no say in the matter. Instead we’re lounging in his shirts and showing them off to the world, just like he would.
Want to make a difference in 2025? Get on my supporter list by making a donation via Ko-Fi!
Anyone who supports this newsletter by any amount will have their name at the bottom of all future newsletters this year.
This newsletter will always be free to read and share, but I rely on the generous donations of readers to build financial security and keep this project going long-term.
Huge shoutout to my 2024 supporters:
Dennis T.
KRW
Grandma Gin Gin
Tara Y.
Murphy Kaye
Maddie B.
Mom
Emma H.
Molly G.
❤️❤️❤️
Sweet story, Jenn. I see you in your dad's face. Take care❤️
Thanks for the laugh and the tear💕🎶🤗