Tuesday, July 20, 2010

a new shirt and a memory of buttons

I am just over the moon with my new John Wayne style cowboy shirt. I just love it. It's perfect. My sweetheart labored 2 days to make it and years to locate the pattern which she already had.

There are 24 buttons on it. It made me think back to my 2nd Youth Conference as a youth. John Delane Wiberg, my good friend, had a stylish sweater vest on with lots of buttons. The ice breaker prize was who had the most buttons...and naturally he won. The prize was a transistor radio and we stayed up later than we should have, listening to his transistor radio.
Some kid drove up to youth conference in a 1953 Starliner Studebaker, a model I always liked. He probably paid 50 bucks for it. One youth conference I went to showed 7 Brides for 7 Brothers on an old projector from a classroom. The brothers wore this same type shirt that I am wearing in the photo.

I have always liked this style shirt and am happy to now own one. As I struggled to button all the buttons in the new button holes, I remarked that this was a good birth control shirt. By the time you'd get this unbuttoned, the "moment" had passed and you might as well go home. Brigham Young considered buttons to be immoral because you could get undressed to quickly.

The purpose and need for this shirt now is the fact that in 2 days I leave for TREK...It's a spiritual experience in the woods that make us appreciate what the pioneers did for us, regardless of if it's for the spiritual heritage or the building of the nation/community. I will go as an adult child of a family. No, Susan is NOT going on the trek. I'll report back next week...but no pictures since we are not allowed to take any modern technology.

3 comments: