Fodder for the Blog

My husband comes from a long line of folks who like to keep things.  Items that have sentimental value are kept on a shelf, in a curio, on ceiling beams, or on a wall.  Items that may be needed at a later date are saved in a box, in the basement, the closet of a spare bedroom, or the garage. 

above the kitchen cabinets at his grandparent's house

His grandparents even kept an entire barn and transformed it to become their house.

On the surface, a person would think that Hubby has broken the family habit.  He can't stand clutter.  He doesn't hesitate when tossing any and all of the kids' toys into the Goodwill box. 

But family traits are hard to break, and Hubby does have parts of his family in him.

On Friday we had a walk down memory lane. 

Through his T-shirt drawer.

Buttercup is doing a project on Bermuda, which makes me so happy.  That is where Hubby and I lived for seven months after we were first married.  For her presentation, she wants to wear a Bermuda shirt.  I haven't kept any of mine, but Hubby said that he might have one in his T-shirt drawer.

Have mercy.

We found the jersey from when he played basketball in middle school.

We found the shirts from every Turkey Trot in which he has run (which numbers seven in the last seven years).

A paper-thin undershirt stamped with a camp logo was also in the drawer.

If the '87 didn't give away the age of the shirt, the tag certainly did.

When is the last time you saw instructions to wash a garment in hot water?  Or a tag that didn't have details such as the temperature of the tumble dry or pictures telling you not to iron it?  Where are the instructions for people who don't speak English?  Lastly, what is Forirei Polyester? 

We also got to share memories of Hubby's alma mater. We found lots of T-shirts resembling this one.

Well, maybe not the "champions" part.  More the Purdue part.

My favorite of his keepsakes, the one that made me laugh the hardest, is the shirt from the high school track state meet.

This is the shirt from the regional meet, where he ran but didn't place.  I also had this shirt, as I ran in the meet as well.  (We started dating in high school.) I won and qualified for the final state meet in four events, but I got rid of my shirt long ago.

In the end, we had a mountain of shirts.  All from one overly-stuffed drawer.

All these shirts from that one top drawer!

Unfortunately, not one was a Bermuda shirt. 

The next day, Hubby came inside after working in the garden.  I immediately asked if I could take a picture of him.

His response, "I am not simply fodder for your blog."

But he posed for a picture anyway.

This is a shirt that I haven't seen in at least five years.  I asked him why he was wearing it. 

He answered, "If I don't start wearing those shirts, you'll make me throw them away." 


When we married 17 years ago, I knew he would have a tendency to hold onto some things.  He also knew that I come from a family of unsentimental get rid of it neat freaks.  We had the choice to either embrace the differences or bicker and argue about them for the rest of our lives.   Changing the other person was never an option, as we are mere mortals.  Not a chance in the world we could change generations of ingrained behavior. 

Since our backgrounds helped us become the people were are, we chose to embrace the other's opposite tendencies.  Over the years it has also helped us keep our own tendencies in check.

I don't just start tossing things out whenever the fancy strikes, and he keeps his collections to a minimum.  Usually stuffed in a drawer.

So when he said that I was going to make him throw the shirts away, he was just kidding.  He knows that I would never make him.  I may tease him mercilessly until he chooses to get rid of a few, but I won't make him do anything.

As we were getting ready for bed that night, we were joking about the pile of T-shirts still on the bed.  With a grin, Hubby opened the second drawer and said, "Luckily, my best shirts are kept in here."

Have a lovely day!