Stuff

A whim brought that shirt to our place--clearly a waste of money, some might say. I was remembering my dad's working life, where it began--at least when I was old enough to understand where it began: a foundry in Oostburg, Wisconsin, where he'd lived since his father, a preacher, took a call to that little burg on the western shore of Lake Michigan. He'd come with his parents, gone to high school there, fell in love with Jeannie-with-the-light-brown-hair, got married, even fathered a daughter before--as he would have said--"the Japs" attacked Pearl Harbor.

When he returned from the South Pacific 1945, there was another angelic little girl he'd fathered just before he'd left for the service. But the war was behind him--and them--and his war-time experience as a scribe made him a bookkeeper at a place named Gilson, right there in town. He could bike to work, or walk.

Here 'tis, in fact--Gilson Manufacturing, Oostburg, Wisconsin, 1946. That's Dad, second from the right, front row. 

I remember the office where he worked, and the foundry behind it, where a couple dozen sweaty men (a glass vile on the wall beside the pop machine held salt pills) made cement mixers for all those vets who, like him, were building houses and families.

Sorry to say, through the years Dad became progressively less taken with his Gilson job. The ownership changed hands, as such things do. Eventually, he was the only Dutch Reformed guy in an office full of Luxembourgian Roman Catholics, whose codes of ethics were not sculpted by synodical warnings against cards, dancing, theater--and what-not else. 

A couple of decades later, he was offered a job in the Oostburg State Bank, a position he had no trouble accepting. Gilson had moved to Fredonia, Wisconsin, a half-hour drive south and west. Whether or not it was true, he considered himself a minority in the office there and often felt put upon. The old Oostburg Gilson had been almost totally Dutch-American, a bunch of ex-GIs whose work and lunch-time horseshoe tournaments made them close as a family.

That's the Gilson I remember, the one in the picture. When I saw this t-shirt on-line some years ago, I bought it for him really, even though he was long gone and never wore anything larger than a medium. Pure nostalgia. Nobody in a half-day's travel would recognize the insignia or name. Only my sisters would understand and neither of them ever laid eyes on it. I bought it for him because I couldn't resist an orange t-shirt with the Gilson trademark, even though Gilson, bought out by Toro, is itself history. 

That orange T-shirt was part of my wardrobe for maybe ten years. It was never something I'd wear around town, so it was relegated to the work shirt pile, which explains the fade and the cut-off sleeves. Truth be known, it likely never left the yard, but put in some considerable hours just outside my window.

For a couple of years now, I've been trying to hold myself to a "replacement theory" of my own: if I buy a new T-shirt, I toss one of the old ones. So last week I came home from Oklahoma with two off a Goodwill rack, one to wear around town, another--an Oklahoma State beauty--to wear to the gym. Now, two T-shirts must go. My wife and I are 75 years old; we don't need more "stuff."

The Gilson shirt--which I alone valued and has seen its better days--goes into the trash barrel this morning, then pushed out to the street for pick up, all of which suggests this is its retirement party. Maybe so. 

Long, long ago, I started a blog to keep myself writing. I used the title that's still here--"Stuff in the Basement." The idea was to write about "stuff" with which I'd surrounded myself at the desktop where the big, old Dell stood, "stuff" that had a story. Today I'm in a different basement, but still here where I started. 

This morning, my Gilson T-shirt is going to go.

Not to worry, a shelf of the library behind me holds a 4 x 6 snapshot of Mom and Dad. It's not like they'll be forgotten. 

All of this sounds so very funereal, but sometime this morning that oft beloved T-shirt will end up in a landfill. Just thought I'd let you know. 

Such is life, I guess.