Old Blue

I have an old blue t-shirt that pretty much goes with me on any outdoor trip. It’s been that way for years. Honestly, it’s hard to even recall the details of when it was purchased. I know it was in the mid-nineties, making the shirt around twenty years old.

Perhaps twenty years would rank low on the impression scale if it were, say, a shirt I got from a concert and only wear now to read the Sunday paper. But this one sees only the harshest of treatment. It has been dunked in rivers, scraped over rocks, covered in mud, rode hard and literally put up wet. In had been used to dry camp dishes and dry my hair after impromptu creek showers. On more than one occasion, it has been stuffed into a pack pocket or trunk and forgotten about for weeks. I have never owned an article of clothing that I’ve treated worse, yet from every low point it continues to rise like the Phoenix. It just always seems to beg for more.

It was the first “technical” shirt I can remember purchasing and even recall thinking it didn’t feel all that comfortable the first time I put it on. Back then, the best backcountry brands weren’t occupying the front racks at your local sporting goods store like you see now. For those wondering, it is a North Face shirt. We found a hole-in-the-wall shop about 3 hours away that carried their gear. We had never seen the brand in person, only in the outdoor magazines we read. I went there to buy a tent, yet I left with a big more.  

I’ve always been a sucker for a good t-shirt. Still am. My latest favorites are my yellow North Lime donut shirt, my Dave Rawlings tee and an Indian Staircase shirt I got from J&H Lanmark.

But there’s something about the old blue classic. When I bought it, the front was adorned with crisp white lettering and an accompanying graphic. The lettering started tattering and picking loose maybe five years in. The graphic did the same and now there barely remains proof of anything ever occupying the front. Unless you look closely, it resembles a plain blue work shirt.

One would never know the things it’s been through. And it has far outlived its heyday. I couldn’t get a nickel for it but wouldn’t take a fifty-dollar bill.  

And aren’t those the best kind?

-JW