The Letter Jacket
I am taking a trip down Memory Lane since I saw the SHS cheerleaders wearing their letter “sweaters” at one of the recent home football games.
It brought back bittersweet memories for me that I cherish to this day. To give you a little background for my story, every guy, and even some girls, out for sports had that royal blue letter jacket with white leather sleeves and a bold S sewn on the left front side of the jacket. And every medal they earned, whether it was in sports or academics, was sewn onto that S that they also earned. Needless to say, we had some great sports teams as well as individual athletes and scholars who had so many medals on their jacket that they literally jingled when they walked down the halls of the school.
A tradition we had was to wear those letter jackets when we cheered on the track during the football season. Usually the cheerleaders asked their steady guy to borrow his for the games, making wearing it even that more special.
Anyway, since I was just in eighth grade, and there was no special guy I liked at the time when school and football season started, I did have a very special friend. So I asked him if I could borrow his jacket for the season, and he not only let me borrow it for the entire year, he (his mother) also had it dry-cleaned before he gave it to me! And his S fairly jingled already even though we were only in eighth grade because he was an excellent track star, basketball player and scholar. And let’s face it, I know I was the envy of all the girls because the jacket I proudly wore that year was Marlin Locke’s.
But the memories don’t stop there with Marlin. When we finally made it into high school, we were assigned lockers our freshman year. Since my last name is Laska, my locker was smack dab in the middle of Tessy Korb and Marlin Locke. For those lucky enough to have known them, “How’s that for a pair to hang out with?” The medals on their letter jackets continued to grow during the next four years because they were outstanding in sports, especially track for Tessy, and basketball and track for Marlin, who also race-walked. What a way to start high school since during that first year we had our own special space, decorating all three of our lockers whenever there was a game or holiday whether Marlin wanted to or not. (He just went along with our crazy ideas.) I really liked our Christmas decorations. For those of you who remember, Tessy had a laugh that could be heard throughout the halls and Marlin’s shy smile could light up a room.
Both of them are gone now, but the special memories I have of them live on in my heart.
