New clothes By Chad Roskelley

I remember not having gloves or boots for winter, however Mom had a solution: multiple layers of mismatched socks on our hands and on our feet covered by a plastic bread sack and a rubber band to secure: They worked great for sledding down the hill but getting back up was nearly impossible. And Mom knew we wouldn’t be out long before the bags would tear and we would get all wet.

Our most exciting days were the one’s where we got home from school to find that our, just older cousins in Michigan, had grown out of some clothes and sent us a box of Hand-me-downs. That was the day that we got new, at least new to us, name brand jeans, winter wear, socks and the much coveted store bought briefs.

The biggest fights I remember having with my brother was over the one good pair of matching white socks or the one pair of fruit of the loom briefs.

Mom made most of our clothes: She made us coats, she made jeans, shirts and she even made us boxer shorts. I remember the Christmas that we received our home made, multi colored boxer shorts. They actually looked pretty good lying folded and flat in the bottom of a gift box. The boxers looked great laying flat, they even had a nice folded fly to keep things nicely covered up when not in use, however Mom had somehow neglected the fact that butts are round not flat and when the boxers were worn, the nice folded fly that was supposed to act as a cover stretched out and made a nice diamond shaped window.