Item: 1 Ride brand plaid shirt, Size S

I bought this shirt at the Filene's Basement store in the Mall of America in 1997. My friend Rebekah bought the same shirt, so we had matching shirts for awhile. These shirts, a lot of different shades of brown and green, were in the very front of the store (read: cool new thing for fall).

I am thinking of plaid shirts, obliquely, because of the photograph that was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times today. It showed family members of the miners lost in West Virginia, walking away after hearing the news last night. They are all looking down. The woman in the center is wearing a sort of faded oversized thick flannel shirt-jacket.

I know why this detail in particular is still with me, but I hesitate to say it. Just what I can see in the picture tells me that the world of Tallmansville is of a distinctly different nature from mine, and that touches off in me a longing for lives I have not gotten to live. Who would I be, given the opportunity to live there? Less dressed-up, maybe, and more useful?

The point of the picture is, of course, not this at all. Just what I could see of the faces reminded me of why I love America. Sympathies tonight to those struck by this sadness.