A Letterman’s Story
My Dehen letterman’s jacket was a hand-me-down, but that didn’t diminish my pride when I wore it for the first time in 1971. I was fourteen years old and only the second freshman in Milwaukie High School history to have earned a varsity letter in track and field. I had to win the high jump in our final meet to qualify for letterman status, clearing a lifetime best well over my head. It was one of the proudest and happiest days of my young life.
We had only a few weeks to the end of the school year, and the May weather was too warm for a letterman’s jacket. But I surely didn’t care. I was not missing out on the chance to walk the halls wearing that maroon and gold. I was a letterman, dammit. I was a freshman letterman, and proud of my accomplishment. Rather than buy a new jacket, my mother suggested I use my brother’s old one. Mark, an outstanding scholar athlete, had lettered in football and baseball before graduating in 1970. He agreed to the transfer, and I was honored. She removed his old letter and emblems, then drove me downtown to Caplan’s Sport Shop on Southwest Fifth. Caplan’s was where everybody went to get letterman’s jackets and sweaters, as well as baseball gloves, cleats and just about anything else for athletics. There we bought a new gold “M,” a flying shoe track and field emblem, and a gold bar to represent one year. She sewed everything on that night; I wasn’t waiting one extra day.
