My Golden State Warriors Starter Jacket
It was my first and last one
A sea of blue and yellow. All the Asian and Black kids had it. For me it was bittersweet. It was my first. I wanted it for so long but not this way.
We were just leaving Old Country Buffet at the Har Mar Shopping Mall.
Perplexed a sixty-something White man asked,
“are you all part of an organization or something?”
“huh?”
Breath clouds disappearing in the air.
I looked around the parking lot. I saw one and then another and then another . . .
My sister exited the mall and joined me on the sidewalk. She had hers on.
I didn’t know how to answer that old man's question. We may have unknowingly been part of an “organization,” united by our low-income households and bargain-shopping parents. Our mother was an extremely talented bargain shopper, who always found the most unusual items — dirt cheap. The problem was there was no use for most of it so it just filled the house with more clutter.
These jackets would keep us warm in the Minnesota winter. I wished they could be useless clutter instead.
I always wanted a starter jacket. Everyone wore them from Aaliyah to the cool kids in my…
