Trying again with T-shirts!

WHOO.  A big Jungle Red standing ovation to Marla Braden, who is such a genius she figured out where to retrieve the vanished blog. There are only 6 comments, instead of the 61 there when this entire post mysteriously poofed away an hour ago. I had managed to retrieve all those wonderful comments, too,  another way, and I will try to copy those in somehow. I read them all, trust me, and commented. But whew, thanks to the fab Marla, the blog is back.  Never a dull moment!

T-shirts! Trash or Treasures?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I need your advice. First, the good news: I got to sit in business class on the train from New York to Boston. The bad news: its not the quiet car.
The bad news: You can hear everyone's conversations.
The good news: You can hear everyone's conversations.

So, what could I do but listen? And behind me, a woman was on the phone talking about how one of her friends was moving to a new apartment and what made it so hard was that this friend could never throw anything away.

I was feeling very virtuous about what a good thrower-awayer I am until I thought about the t-shirts. Because, since it is just us, I can reveal that I have a bag of t-shirts in one closet in our house. And I did not even know what was inside. Was I just like train-talker's friend?

So, inspired and semi-embarrassed, when I got home from Thrillerfest, (and most about that soon)---I thought: Okay. I am going to throw away all those old t-shirts. Adios, goodbye, gone.

So, as I said,  I need your advice.

Could you throw these away?  I've been a reporter for forty years. And, um, got a lot of t-shirts.

Here's the Red Sox in 1986, American League champs, and the 2001 Patriots. A Super Bowl I covered. A 1984  Boston Marathon shirt from one of the years I watched the whole thing backward from the back of a pickup truck in front of the lead woman runners, reporting via two-way radio. Throw these? Yes or no?

How about these? From TV stations I've worked for, with changed and now-vanished logos, and shows that were cancelled, slogans that have faded from memory. The Lillehammer Olympics. This is part  of my work past. Save or throw?

These make me so nostalgic! The Paul Simon-Bob Dylan concert? The STONES???? That's a keeper, right?  The Bread and Roses rally in Lawrence? And here is the t-shirt from the 1998 concert of the Century on the Champs de Mars in Paris: The Three Tenors. Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras. No way I'm giving that up. Vincero.

And--come on, you guys. My t-shirts from my time working at Rolling Stone Magazine?  The t-shirt from playing Hitchhiker's Guide? (Did you catch the Babel fish?)   And how about that anti-war number? And oh--NORML. I used to date the guy who was the head of it--and he introduced me to...truly? Coffee. I had my first cup of real coffee, cream and sugar, with Keith. Keeping that.
Right?

What do I keep and what do I throw?

And, Reds and readers, do you have a stash of t-shirts? Why? Which ones can you not bear to throw away?

(and more on this week's winners tomorrow!