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Collecting National Park T-Shirts: The Passion and the Pain

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This is one of my favorites. How could I ever kill it?

“Ernie, you are my best friend in this world, and I will gladly give you the shirt off my back – unless, of course, it happens to be a national park tee.”

When I enter a national park visitor center, my feet automatically take me to the gift shop or bookstore. That’s where the national park T-shirts are. I simply cannot resist buying national park tees. I wear them as often as I can, too. It’s an addiction. There, I’ve admitted it. I’m feeling better already.

National park T-shirts aren’t like those other park souvenirs gathering dust on the shelf or stowed away in some forgotten shoebox. You wear them, and that makes all the difference. When you put on a national park tee, it doesn’t just trigger fond memories. It helps you relate to the world. Wear one on the trail, in the mall, or at the cookout and it tells others where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and what sort of person you are. Total strangers become new friends as they tell you their “I’ve been there too” stories.

I have a great big dresser drawer chock-full of neatly folded national park tees. This is my working inventory. There are more national park tees in my closet, at least one or two in the trunk of my car, and some others in the barracks bag I tote along on hunting trips. Out in the garage is a rag bag holding the remains of tees too ratty to wear.

Don’t look for national park tees in my laundry. Washing fades them, so I avoid that as much as possible. I’ve learned that a tee can be worn for at least three days before it ripens. (Since I sometimes lose the count, you might want to stand upwind from me like my friends and relatives do.) A tee that isn’t washed too often should last for years and years.

This brings me to the issue at hand. Summer is over here in the South Carolina, and so is the T-shirt season. We’ve had our first frost, and as winter draws near I can no longer ignore the fact that it’s time to clean out my T-shirt drawer. That space is needed for the lightweight sweaters and sweatshirts one must wear during the Palmetto state’s sissy winter. The tees will have to be moved to storage and rested until next April.

Alas, not all of my tees will get a well deserved rest. Some will have to be culled. Just as the clock ticks down for thee and me from the day we are born, a tee gets closer to the rag bag every day from the time it is made. Even tees that haven’t been foolishly washed too often will eventually fade from exposure to sunlight and the elements. Even venerable tees that have provided many years of faithful service, never complaining and never fading, eventually become unserviceable. Mine, for example, tend to rot out in the armpits.

A tidal wave of indecision has been eating at my innards. Which tees should I kill this year? Some of my old friends are looking pretty bedraggled. I suspect that several already know they will not be there next April to greet the warming sun and have already said their goodbyes.

Postscript: I’ve considered collecting national park sweatshirts too, but have you seen what they’re charging for those darn things? I’m a thrifty guy (not “cheap,” as my wife insists), so I’ll stick with the tees until I win the lottery.

Comments

The first park-related t shirt that I remember was the ubiquitous "Go Climb a Rock" shirt peddled by the old Yosemite Park and Curry Co. It spawned a host of copy cat shirts like "Go hike a Canyon". My most prized park-related t shirt, no longer wearable, was created by the opposition forces to the creation of the new Alaska national monuments in the late 70's by President Carter, a step toward the new parks and preserves created by ANILCA. The shirt features a sled dog, lifting its leg and taking a leak on a sign reading "National Monuments." Priceless!

Rick Smith


Everything has a price, Rick. How much will you take for that sled dog shirt?


I first started collecting t-shirts from parks we visited. But I'm a runner and already had a ton of shirts from races. So then I went to coffee mugs. But it filled up our cabinets and I later gave up coffee. After that I went to caps and now have a closet full. So now I don't collect anything. I still have a few of my favorite shirts and caps that I wear occasionally.


You've given up collecting?! Robert, I suggest that you seek professional help right away. It may not be too late.


Lapel pins! They are cheap and take up very little room. Put up a big bulliten board, stick your pins in it and you're set!

On the note of t-shirts... any ideas where to get Joshua Tree shirts or Channel Island shirts? We visited both parks, they had no shirts, went to the stores in the towns and found none there as well. So, our t-shirt collection is lacking...


I collect the walking stick medallions. I always buy 2 of each... One for my walking stick, and one for a driftwood tree trunk I found in Earthquake Lake, Montana. I have it standing in the livingroom as a medal display.


Anon, the Western National Parks Association Store is a good online source of T-shirts and other Channel Islands National Park souvenirs. You'll find the WNPA store at this site. I agree that lapel pins are nice collectibles, but they can't keep the sun off your back.


If the Traveler gave out prizes -- and it's something that's crossed our minds -- Dan would win hands down, I think. Using a driftwood trunk to display those park walking stick medallions is, as they say in those Guinness commercials, Brilliant! Just Brilliant!.

Fire us off a photo Dan and we'll see if we can post it. Rather than getting the whole log in the shot, since it would likely be too small to discern much on the Traveler, focus on one section with lots of medallions.


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