Old-School Style, Dad’s Letterman Jacket: Guest Blogger
If we had to come up with a shortlist of our favorite publications, GQ, Men’s Journal, and New York Magazine would be right at the top. Funny how our latest guest blogger, Martin Mulkeen, has written for all of them. Over the next few days, this plugged-in dude will be sharing his hard-earned style and grooming lessons. Trust us when we say, he knows what he’s talking about.
Of all the treasures I’ve culled from my father’s closet over the years—armfuls of plaid wool pendleton shirts, a Sierra Designs 60/40 Parka, and a vintage San Francisco Giants Starter jacket among them—his high school letterman jacket is my favorite.
From the powdered innards of the nearly-disintegrated fire crackers I found in the left pocket, to the ghost of a fighting Irishman whose been ripped off backward-dukes-up stance and all (where that leprechaun is, we’ll never know), this jacket is high school in 1963. Thankfully, my initial attempts to clean it were thwarted. At least three dry cleaners in Brooklyn, as well as specialty uptown cleaner Madame Paulette, told me the chemicals they would use to clean the wool body would destroy the leather sleeves. Good thing, because I could have unwittingly erased the jacket’s most extraordinary feature.
Lending your sweetheart your letterman is a timeless—if cheesy—symbol of teenage devotion. I have no doubt this jacket was lent to more than a few female classmates in its time, but the truly special thing about dad’s letterman is that it flips that high school trope on its head. In a display of romantic devotion, he had inscribed his then-girlfriend’s telephone number on his right sleeve with a blue ballpoint pen.
It’s right there at the elbow, so it’s easy to refer to while dialing. As my father tells it, this was common practice at the time. If you were going steady, you wrote your girl’s digits on your arm—like a tattoo with training wheels, designed to nettle his teachers (who were mostly members of the clergy).
In an age of Facebook walls and real teenage tattoos, it’s difficult to fathom an equivalent display of affection at once so innocent and so completely badass. Thanks for that one, dad.
Looking for a new style of little black book? Try these Field Notes memo books instead.
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