Had fun and bought the T-shirt!

Kim Kovach

Folding warm shirts and pajamas fresh from the clothes dryer, I held up one of my favorite summer T-shirts.

This soft, faded black short-sleeved T-shirt has bright pink lettering and images of an ice cream cone and a pink 1950’s car promoting Sweet Blondies ice cream shop.

This super comfy summer shirt brings me back to a road trip with my friend, Ellen, in 1986, when I was contemplating moving out of Manhattan.

One weekend, Ellen borrowed her parents’ car and we drove up towards Poughkeepsie to look around. On the way home, we stopped at Sweet Blondies in Wappingers Falls. We liked the fun, colorful décor and the retro ice cream parlor ambiance. We ate ice cream and brownies. On the way out of the door, Ellen and I each bought a black and pink Sweet Blondies T-shirt.

Now that I think about it, I wear several graphic T-shirts from summers past. I like the blue Luray Caverns T-shirt I bought in the gift shop after a fantastic underground walking tour of this natural wonder on a hiking trip to Virginia.

I also wear a black T-shirt with colorful images depicting the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Festival that my friend, Deb, sent me years ago. She knew I would like this shirt since I had bungee-jumped from a hot air balloon on a sweltering summer day in 1992.

After countless cycles through the washer and dryer, some of my favorite old graphic T-shirts are now lovingly folded in the bottom drawer of the bedroom dresser. I remember taking Metro North down to the city to see the rock band U2 at Madison Square Garden. That was the concert where lead singer, Bono, had his arm in a cast. I bought a Joshua Tree concert T-shirt after the performance. The fabric is soft and almost fragile now but the printing is still legible. On the front is a black and white photograph of the band. On the back is a list of the 1987 fall concert tour cities.

Another precious rock T-shirt I keep in the bottom drawer is from an INXS concert in Hartford. I was attending a two-day work conference in 1991 and saw that my favorite rock group was playing at the Hartford Civic Center. I asked a few of the other women I had met that day at the conference if they would be interested in going to a rock concert that night? I walked over to the Civic Center on my lunch break and bought four tickets for that evening. We all had a fun time. I bought this white INXS North American Tour concert T-shirt featuring black and red graphics of the band and the tour venues.

Here is my Hotel Del T-shirt from a summer vacation stay at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego and my Mohonk Mountain House T-shirt, too!

Like an archeologist on an expedition, I reached further into the bottom drawer and found my Ghostbusters T-shirt. I remember buying this light blue T-shirt with the ghost logo on the front from a street vendor in NYC after seeing the original 1984 movie starring Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray. I saw the movie several times that summer. On a whim, I had decided to re-style the Ghostbusters T-shirt by cutting the neckline for an off-the-shoulder “Flashdance” kind of vibe. I received lots of compliments when I wore that Ghostbusters shirt over a summer tank top!

Kim Kovach’s creative radar works even while folding laundry! Please ask about her fiction writing classes starting in September at kimkovachwrites.com.