A tribute to the greatest T-shirts I ever owned (in Memoriam, mostly)

Like everyone from my generation, I have owned something like a million T-shirts. While most of them simply covered my body for a time, there are a few that stand out for a variety of reasons. They might have an exceptional cool factor, been especially telling about some area of my personality, or were given as gifts by special people. As a devout Generation Xer there is a part of me that feels these shirts are indicative of who I am as a person and I therefore find it necessary to create this list. As no favorites could possible be indicated, I will present my list in purchase order.

Superman logo on a white shirt with long blue sleeves: Having spent my early childhood on a farm in Ohio in the 1970s, this was the first shirt I remember owning that did not have snaps. Not only did it not have snaps, it didn’t button up at all. My best friend, we’ll call him Alowishus, had the same shirt, which meant that we could wear it to school on the same day and fool the teacher like in that movie about the twins (Okay, that never worked, but it was worth a try). My third grade year I managed to wear it to school on picture day, which resulted in a one of my favorite school mug shots, and a firm paddling from my horrified mother.

Ghostbusters logo on white shirt: When previews for this movie hit the airwaves it was all my friends and I could talk about (a conversation spurred on by the fact that many of our parents couldn’t decide if it was okay to let us watch, or if it was “of the devil.” A bit late, in my estimation, after letting us all watch Raiders of the Lost Arc, Poltergeist and First Blood). When it finally came out my older step-brother took me to see it, giving me tons of street cred at the elementary school. Of course I had to have the T to remind everyone who they were dealing with. This was the first time I recognized how cool it made you to be the first to see something. Of course, that whole “go to the first show on the first day” mentality has grown into a marketing strategy over the years, but in the fifth grade, that idea was revolutionary to me.

Queensrych, Empire logo on a black shirt: This was the shirt I purchased at my first ever rock concert. I was a junior in high school, and I couldn’t even tell you how I convinced my parents to let me go. The previous year I had gotten in trouble for having a bootlegged Stryper album, and now I was allowed to go see Queensrych who’s album was most decidedly not promoting any Christian deity. It was a phenomenal show. Even though Empire had just come out, they were still doing the entire Operation Mindcrime show, compete with the first ever live giant video screens. Of all the concert T-shirts I have bought, at $20 this one was the cheapest and the best.

Original Star Wars poster (the one where everyone is holding a blaster and Han‘s looks more like a lightsaber) on a white shirt with blue trim around the neck and sleeves: Nothing special about where I got this one. It was at a J.C. Penny’s. What was amazing was that it existed at all. This was pre-prequil and Star Wars was not the cultural phenomenon it is these days. To even find a shirt, much less one that awesome, was a rare treasure. For a college student who could still tell you where his old Star Was sheets set was (because it was still on his bed), this couldn’t have been more exciting.

Batman 66 logo on a white shirt with black trim on neck and sleeves: Another golden oldie that I found at a time when it was hard to believe anyone would be producing these shirts for kids, much less adults. Produced in the lull between Batman and Robin and the Christoper Nolan series, when it was commonly felt that Joel Schumacher had destroyed the character forever by reverting to the reviled ’60s version, someone had the audacity to produce a blatantly throw back shirt. I loved it, and wore it threadbare.

American Flag with baseballs instead of stars, and stripes made to look like the diamond on a white shirt: Each ball had the retired number of some great player, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Ted Williams, and of course Jackie Robinson. The metaphor of the shirt was so simple and true, baseball and the USA are one in the same. There are so many parallels between the national pass time and the state of our country’s philosophy and affairs that I can’t even begin to go into it here, nor should I need to if you know and love the game. Suffice to say that I wore that shirt until the hole in the armpit became so big that my wife refused to be seen with me when I wore it.

Daredevil on a black shirt, with glow in the dark concentric rings to show his super sensory powers: This is the first shirt on the list that I still actually have and wear, although I wear it less and less because I’m not sure how many washes it has left in it. The glow in the dark hasn’t worked in years, and because that stuff is rubbery, sometimes it kind of sticks together when it comes out of the dryer. The picture itself appears to be a Joe Quesada drawing, or a really good knock off. Its a great shirt and I get compliments almost every time I wear it out to pop culture events.

Dark blue shirt with the words “Vintage 1974”: This is one of my recently acquired shirts, but I know that it, like the others on this list, will be worn until it is to ragged to wear in polite society. The reason it is so special is that my daughter, Elle, picked it out for me to wear on my 40^th birthday. She was so proud of herself that she couldn’t wait until my birthday to give it to me, so I got it about a month in advance.

I’m a Proud Husband of a Freaking Awesome Wife on a grey shirt: On the bottom of the shirt, in parenthesis and in very small print it adds: (…and yes, she bought me this shirt). And yes, she made me add this one to the list.