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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 school. Problem was, we had a single mother and there were 4 of us. No way she was going to shell out $100 for one jacket.
So when there was a huge markdown on all the Golden State Warriors starter jackets at Montgomery Wards (I think it was) — she purchased a few.
It was so ugly, I hated the color combination and all the poor kids had them. Just like that one floral top and bottom set from Montgomery Wards our mom bought us, several girls at my school had the same outfit.
A Chicago Bulls jacket would have been so nice.
I guess people were noticing that a lot of kids were wearing the same damn jacket in St. Paul Minnesota, sometime in the mid 90’s. Even White people.
How embarrassing.
We had just ate at Old Country Buffet with our father. The fried chicken and fish fillets were to die for! and for seven bucks and some change, you could…
