Clair McFarland: Mama no longer says Berghaggery in the video news

I withdraw the red flannel shirt.

See, I was in my house and researched the death penalty when my mother came in and a satin top, the bell floor jeans and the boots with a high section.

Mama left her dog pistol and homemade Kombucha in her truck. She walked fearlessly through the chaos of life, which I with four young parts. She sniffed out of the air, hung a boy's jacket on a hook and began to stack clean shells in a kitchen cabinet with the energy of a jackrabbits.

“Hi Honeyyy!” Called mom.

I trudged out of my office in my old flannel shirt and a series of jogging pants that I stole from Firstborn's cabinet.

“It is time to withdraw from the video messages,” said Mama and snapped his finger at my general location.

“I … has to withdraw from video messages?” I wondered and wondered if this could be my chance to move into a remote cabin and to live from the caught squirrels.

“No, stupid goose,” she giggled. “This flannel.”

I looked down. My ragged red flanel looked up again.

“But” I stammered, “you know how long I have been waiting to get that.”

She nodded. She knows and I know how long I was waiting to do the red-male, bad flannel shirt with a bag and a collar.

When we were children, my oldest brother Leland wore the red flannel outside when he chopped wood.

I had to stay inside and wash dishes that I now realize that I am not female: it is because I am not coordinated and nobody wanted me to choke my feet.

How I desired this shirt! My brother pushed up rather than the shirtselly when he unloaded the shared tree trunks into a metal nest near our wood oven. He stacked wood on a raging fire, without fear of the flames or the scorching black oven portal. He sweated trust.

But it wasn't my turn yet. Leland ranged the shirt next to my other brother Seth, who was wearing it while he had spotted my bicycle pipes in our garage. His elbows protruded through the red -checked joints when he gave my good bicycle bike and grin me.

I drilled a lot of bicycle pipes and caught a lot of “air” on the homemade jumps that my brothers made me out of ash with ash with ash with ash with ash, but I still had no button-up flannel. I had to be satisfied with blurred sweaters and stirrups. I have murdered under my sparkling hair tips.

Tomboyhood only showered my hand-me-down blessing when my brothers surpassed their clothes without wearing them first.

When I was 11 years old, Seth exceeded his shirt. He met a high six-foot three on a accidental Tuesday and also exceeded shyness and Leland under trust. Just like mom warned everyone he would do.

When she folded a stray towel in my kitchen on Wednesday, Mama saw these memories of my gaze.

“I didn't say that they had to throw the shirt into the fire, hun, they just can't wear it if they did the news,” she said with a frown. “Hold it up and wear it on your day off.”

Mom is concerned about seeing Cowboy State Daily's Video Newscasts. She wants me to be clean and polished. I have the opposite goal. I would like to radiate enough Mountain Haggery to scare the out-of-staters.

However, this red flannel shirt means more than one of these goals.

I am among the people who love twice or three times used clothing and books. Not only because of the obvious material fact – that it is a sign when something has been avoided from the garbage container, but because of the other, intangible, metaphysical sprites that have left the former owners in the threads or between the pages.

My red flannel shirt has more heartache than just surrounding my own and weathering more storms than I can remember. It has more fires than I built and monitored more difficult repair jobs than I tried.

Wearing always infused me with a borrowed courage: the idea that the flannel shirt made it all of this, and I too.

But my mother is right. Or, can be really like a woman if she blinks on all clean cups to ensure that they are actually clean.

The tattered, red, clumsy flannel shirt of the men's size withdraws from video news forever. I don't throw it into the fire and I will never get rid of it. But because this is the end of an era for it, I can offer this grateful laudation.

“Oooh! The next time you should wear a yellow cashmere sweater, ”said mom.

And there she is wrong.

Clair McFarland can be achieved clair@cowboystatedaily.com.