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QuickTake:
It's kept me warm through 40 winters and something like eight presidential administrations. I couldn't give it away. In fact, I even tried once.
In 1984, I moved to Aspen, Colorado, leaving behind my first wife and last poodle, neither of whom was very fond of me. I also left a house that was collapsing and a piano that I didn’t know how to play, and can’t even recall why it was in my living room in the first place.
It was autumn, a glorious time when aspens turned the color of sunflowers and the air hinted of ski season. My job as a reporter for the Aspen Times came with employee housing, allowing me to live in a studio condo with a view of Aspen Mountain for next to nothing.
Aspen, of course, was madly expensive. Dining out would require selling a kidney, and even that wouldn’t cover dessert. When school let out, the road to the high school parking lot looked like rush hour in Beverly Hills. The police drove Saabs.
I wasn’t prepared for the cold, and I soon realized I needed a warm coat. Since I couldn’t afford Aspen prices, I drove an hour to Glenwood Springs, where real people lived, and where there was a J.C. Penney.
I chose a goose-down parka made by St. John’s Bay. It’s a safe bet it was on sale. It had plenty of pockets and was loose enough to accommodate my entire collection of frayed sweaters. It was tan, the color of a potato.
I have worn it every winter for the past 40 years, starting in the Reagan administration and continuing through George H.W. Bush, Clinton, Little Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden and Re-Trump.
I wore it Thanksgiving night in 1987, soon after I met my second (and best) wife. We strolled through softly falling snow and twinkling lights around the library park next to my apartment. I wore it in 1988, when I reported a story for the Detroit Free Press about fire barrels and those who gathered around them. Ten years later, I wore it through a snowstorm when my youngest daughter was born.
It is stained by paint, varnish, motor oil and other petroleum products, so it’s important to keep it away from flames. I consider it a piece of art in the mold of Jackson Pollock.
If coats were like dog years, mine would be 280 years old. I have worn it for more than half of my 72 years and, still, the zippers and snap buttons work flawlessly.
It’s part of an elaborate system I adhered to for decades. At any given point, I would have three pairs of identical white Nikes. Pair A was for special occasions like getting married and attending my father’s funeral. Pair B was for going out in public, and Pair C for when I was working outside or in the shop.
By the time A became B and B became C, the old Cs were fairly ripe and no longer allowed in the house. And so the cycle continued.
I liked the shoes, not because they were fashionable, but because I wouldn’t have to try them on whenever I needed a new pair. Shopping to me is just above root canals, colonoscopies and the Boston Red Sox when it comes to my least favorite things.
At my oldest daughter’s wedding in 2006, I had on my A sports jacket, A blue jeans, A shirt and, in my excitement, one A shoe and one C shoe. Thankfully, the mismatch was pointed out before I walked her down the aisle.
A few winters ago, I offered my coat to a woman who was cold and didn’t have one. She said, “Uh, thanks,” and turned away.
I told a 10-year-old neighbor named Jake one year that he shouldn’t be out in the cold wearing shorts.
“You’re no one to be giving fashion advice,” he said.
Of course, he was right and continued dribbling his basketball in the driveway.
I wear my potato coat when my dog, Yogi, and I go out on missions. We load up in my Nissan Frontier pickup, which runs like a charm as long as we’re going downhill.
It has 261,823 miles on it, and it is 23 years old.
That’s 161 in dog years.
What’s the story behind your oldest article of clothing? Please don’t tell me it’s underwear.
