Athletic Heirloom

Last night I videochatted with my dad and held up this shirt. He recognized it from his last year of high school, when he moved from Greece to New Jersey to avoid serving in the army and to go to college in America.I found it on the first floor of my grandmother's house, which she built in the mid-60's along a river before other land-locked Greeks had considered the value of living near water. The shirt was folded and crisp with dirt in my aunt's childhood room, which had been rendered unlivable by floods and stray cats and a long period of neglect. Upon realization of the shirt's greatness, its velveteen letters cracking and turning gray, I stuffed it into my handbag and then my duffel bag without mention, unable to risk it being wrongfully claimed after all this time.