by David Rattray
This morning, as I got ready to make coffee, I happened to look up and caught a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror. What I noticed, aside from the two-day beard growth and dark circles under my eyes, was that I was wearing an official Dartmouth cross-country sweatshirt that I had liberated from David Lasher.
The 25-year-old garment is stained with paint, rust, and who-knows-what from projects in my shop and around the house, but it remains wearable. I’ve built boats in it, burped infants in it, sat around innumerable beach bonfires in it, played hockey in it, loaned it to girlfriends and gotten it back. This morning, I’ll feed the chickens in it. The sweatshirt is in damn good condition, considering its age and that it has been subjected to use and abuse of all manner. Hell, I even slept in it last night.
I could get all maudlin at this point and say something about how it has held up all these years like my Dartmouth experiences, but I won’t. Nope, I’ll just get up off the couch and get on with my Saturday.
