Windbreaker, pt. 1 [Liam]
Some time ago, I stopped giggling at the term "windbreaker," at least when used to refer to a jacket. A little while later I completely stopped wearing the things. For probably about 5 years I've gone without owning a lightweight, weatherproof jacket of man-made materials, and for some inexplicable reason I've simply never thought to look back. Throughout my childhood I always owned a go-to jacket (I think everyone did), and it was always at that time the most characteristic single garment of my wardrobe.
In preparation for this post I actually ran through a mental "greatest hits" montage of the jackets of my youth: I had a fairly cyclical run of London Fog and Pacific Trail for more than a decade that I haven't considered once until just now. It's somehow very disquieting how old I feel thinking about this.
Around 4th or 5th grade I owned a bright red "Pac Trail" jacket with a blue collar liner that looked exactly like the jacket from Baywatch. I had an MIS patch stitched onto the sleeve that I got from my Grandpa (MIS Vet). The Military Intelligence Service mascot logo was a weasel-like animal with an Indian-style chieftan hat of feathers. Eventually the sun began to turn this jacket a bright pinkish-orange. The elements eventually rendered this garment completely unusable.
A couple years later, in the dark ages of my middle school career, I owned a black windbreaker of unknown make with a purple inner collar (somehow this was ok). It was in this jacket that I experimented with maintaining horrible moustache fuzz and mullet-length hair and was once mistaken for a girl by a nurse who was giving me injections.
I owned a dark green London Fog jacket for winter months at the end of my time at Alvarado, with a leather collar. While wearing this jacket I got robbed for as much as $30 in front of Brian Siu's house by a variety pack of Pacific Islanders during Winter Break. I remember being embarrassed by how much crap I had in the pockets.
I could go on for quite a while, as each of these storied pieces of "outerwear" defined a small stage of my life in Union City. But what I'm really hung up on now is what has changed exactly in me from being a jacket person to being a sport coat/cardigan/pullover/non-motorcycle motorcycle/peacoat person.
I'm tempted to try to answer this right now, but I told myself I was going to post something tonight.
In preparation for this post I actually ran through a mental "greatest hits" montage of the jackets of my youth: I had a fairly cyclical run of London Fog and Pacific Trail for more than a decade that I haven't considered once until just now. It's somehow very disquieting how old I feel thinking about this.
Around 4th or 5th grade I owned a bright red "Pac Trail" jacket with a blue collar liner that looked exactly like the jacket from Baywatch. I had an MIS patch stitched onto the sleeve that I got from my Grandpa (MIS Vet). The Military Intelligence Service mascot logo was a weasel-like animal with an Indian-style chieftan hat of feathers. Eventually the sun began to turn this jacket a bright pinkish-orange. The elements eventually rendered this garment completely unusable.
A couple years later, in the dark ages of my middle school career, I owned a black windbreaker of unknown make with a purple inner collar (somehow this was ok). It was in this jacket that I experimented with maintaining horrible moustache fuzz and mullet-length hair and was once mistaken for a girl by a nurse who was giving me injections.
I owned a dark green London Fog jacket for winter months at the end of my time at Alvarado, with a leather collar. While wearing this jacket I got robbed for as much as $30 in front of Brian Siu's house by a variety pack of Pacific Islanders during Winter Break. I remember being embarrassed by how much crap I had in the pockets.
I could go on for quite a while, as each of these storied pieces of "outerwear" defined a small stage of my life in Union City. But what I'm really hung up on now is what has changed exactly in me from being a jacket person to being a sport coat/cardigan/pullover/non-motorcycle motorcycle/peacoat person.
I'm tempted to try to answer this right now, but I told myself I was going to post something tonight.
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