A final goodbye
There’s been a death in the family. My oldest t-shirt, picturing Fred and Barney in their Royal Order of Water Buffaloes Lodge #26 hats, is no more. Purchased on a business trip to Atlanta, home of The Cartoon Network, in 1996, the Lodge Brothers t-shirt was with me through many notable occasions–some of them suitable, others not: the birth of our son, visits to the local country club pool, under the tuxedo at fund raising events, random Saturdays.
It’s not right to call it my “lucky t-shirt,” because those of you who know my wife will understand that it’s far more complicated than that. It more than fulfilled the minimum requirements for a t-shirt in that it provided some level of coverage of things that no one wants to see, while also making me smile. It was impossible to put on and not do so.
It being older than our son and having been tattered since he was in middle school, I bid it a sad farewell this afternoon and turned into a museum piece for posterity. It will be hung in a place of honor, although whether it will displace any pictures of our children or pets is yet to be determined.
It was proceeded in death by its brother and sister, acquired on the same day, Dastardly & Mutley and Penelope Pitstop. A fourth, thought to be a sibling but of unknown heritage, Huckleberry Hound, died at an early age. No traces of the siblings remain.
The Lodge Brothers. One era ends; a new one begins.
In its final resting place.
The Local Paper 