Truth in t-shirts

I miss American t-shirts. They're the kind of t-shirts that tell you something about the people wearing them.  Sometimes, anyway.  Good ol' t-shirts showing your support for a school or a beach town you visited or a marathon you ran aren't very popular in Italy.  There are occasional jerseys for national soccer teams, but rarely anything local.  Italian high schools don't have teams with colors and mascots because they're too busy teaching Philosophy and History of Art.  And Italian universities are just what the Oxford Dictionary says universities are:  High level institutions in which students study for degrees and academic research is done.  It says nothing about football games and fraternities and tailgates and t-shirts.

My father-in-law used to say you shouldn't wear a t-shirt if it didn't represent you.  In his opinion it was false advertising.  "Truth in t-shirts," he used to say.  In those days I liked my coat with the Chris Craft logo, but I didn't have a Chris Craft.  And I wore a Northwestern University sweatshirt for the color purple, even though I was a green MSU graduate.  Then at some point I adopted Bob's truth in t-shirts philosophy and I stopped wearing them.  It really did feel like false advertising.  The t-shirts said nothing about me.  

In Italy things are different.  Most of the people donning t-shirts with English emblazoned on their breasts (or boobs, in the following two examples) have no idea what they say.  That's about as far from truth in t-shirts as you can get.  Take Gemma, my 75-year old neighbor with her sparkly Touch Me t-shirt.  When I told her what it meant she just laughed.  And you can't do anything but love 85-year old Malvina in her t-shirt with the 3-inch rhinestone letters that read Love Me.  

When a handsome 50-year old student showed up with a tiny Delta Chi embroidered on his polo I had to ask.  And as I'd imagined, he had no idea what it was.   A year later I saw an old woman selling chestnuts on the side of the road with the same polo.  I'm sure neither of them have ever heard of the Animal House.

When I asked the wearer of a Morgan Freeman sweatshirt if she knew who Morgan Freeman was she said no.  The shirt said, I Wish Morgan Freeman Narrated My Life.  If it had said, "I wish J.P. Morgan financed my life" she wouldn't have known the difference.  And my 16-year old student wearing a t-shirt with a Jim Morrison quote didn't know who he was either.  It's a miracle that I did.  When he left I googled The Doors, just in case I was wrong. Even though my high school didn't offer History of Art, I'm happy to say that I learned something from the graffiti in the school parking lot.

The next week the same kid showed up in a black t-shirt with a big, white JESUS printed on the front.  I asked him if he knew who Jesus was.  (In Italian it should've said Gesu'.)  He said, "Yeah.  He's a really good Spanish soccer player."   Ole'!  

The fact that these t-shirts are written in English, and few folks in my small Italian town know what they mean, makes me think they must be meant for me.  This has given truth in t-shirts a new significance.  If they're meant for me, I have to find the truth in them.  I find myself searching for t-shirts as I walk through the piazza.  If I see someone coming but can't read their whole shirt, I circle around for another glimpse to get it all.  They become my words to live by for the day.

I may not have learned anything about philosophy in high school in America, but it seems I'm getting a daily dose in t-shirts in Italy.  Things like You are What you Think and Impossible Doesn't Exist provoke a bit more thought than Go Blue.  

Old-fashioned San Francisco 1965 was an unpleasant reminder that something from 1965 is actually considered old-fashioned.  And it's sad to say, but  there was nothing to learn from Today I Choose Myself.  I'm already pretty good at that one.  

Several months ago at the market in Bassano when I couldn't decide if I should buy the Boyfriend Season is Here t-shirt for Gemma or Malvina, I found the real truth on a t-shirt.  There was no need to jot it down on a wrinkled receipt in the bottom of my bag. I knew this was one I wouldn't forget.

Don't put your key to happiness in someone else's pocket.  

Truth in t-shirts.
Period.