I am wearing a mask today that has a long history with the Crockett family.
It is legit polyester created in the 60’s. Wild colors of pink, yellow, green, red, brown, and blue.
To call it an heirloom is a bit of a stretch.
Let’s jump back to 1990. I’m a sophomore in high school and I am going through my dad’s ties. The deeper I go the weirder the ties are, but I keep looking. I know there is one in here that would be cool. I find this psychedelic, crazy colored tie and fell in love with it.
I asked, “Hey Dad, can I wear this tie to the dance tonight?”
Dad looked at me, “Really? That tie?”
“I think it’s bad.” (Which meant good in those days)
Dad said, “It’s OK with me, but you better check with your mom.”
Really? I need mom to give me permission, are there pagan symbols I am not aware of? But OK, I’ll check.
Mom was folding laundry in the narrow brownish colored marble second bathroom. “Hey mom, may I wear this tie tonight?”
She looked over at the tie and asked, “Do you like it?”
“Yes,” I responded, “it’s bad.” (again, in that time period, bad was good)
Mom starts crying a little.
Turns out, the first-year mom and dad were married, they were poor.
Mom found the fabric on the sale rack at the fabric store, loved the colors, and got a yard of it.
She made the tie herself as a Christmas gift for dad.
On Christmas eve they opened the gifts. Dad started laughing. He thought it was a gag gift. Mom got mad, and it might be the first argument they had as a married couple.
Dad says he did wear the tie, mom said, he never did.
On my last day of high school, my mentor, Mr. Ward, (a very conservative teacher) wore the tie, and he picked out a rather modest tie for me to wear. I looked everywhere for the picture, but no luck.
So, it became my tie. I wore it to both my graduations and to several other important dates in my life.
A year or so after Mom died, Dad brought over all her fabric she had stashed away.
Side story: Mom was always going to turn my Hard Rock t-shirts into a quilt. We even bought all the materials needed. Mom never got it started. When the fabric arrived, so did two trash bags full of HRC shirts. Jeremy and I decided to make the quilt ourselves. We were going through the fabric and I found the full piece of fabric used for that tie. It’s part of the backing of the quilt. We got to the part when we sew the front to the back, but it’s been a struggle for us to finish.
Back to the story: When Jeremy and I started going through the fabric to make masks for COVID, we stumbled across that wild colored polyester material. We made a mask. I wear it, proudly, in honor of a little Crockett family secret, and after all these years, I still think it’s bad. (Still good) I don’t think Jeremy has ever worn it, because, honestly, it’s bad. (In today’s lingo, bad is just bad)