# I pit you, highschool letterman wearer **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 10, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864 "2006-02-10T14:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/41 "2006-02-10T18:55:01Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Ah, High School. Avoiding certain parts of campus (like all of the bathrooms) so that you wouldn’t get your ass kicked for walking in on a drug deal. Two armed guards patrolling the campus at all times. Talking your way out of extortion attempts from gang members. Those were the days allright. Dude, it was all about surviving that shit hole until I could get out. So, because you went to a shitty school, the woman described in the OP s wrong for wearing an old letterjacket? Fuck me. Everything _is_ about you. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/42 "2006-02-10T19:07:05Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > So, because you went to a shitty school, the woman described in the OP s wrong for wearing an old letterjacket? Fuck me. Everything _is_ about you. One has nothing to do with the other. I was responding to King of Soup’s contention that we should look back fondly on our past. Wearing your old high school shit is lame for totally different reasons. That doesn’t make it wrong, for christ’s sake. Do try to keep up. I used to wear tie dye shirts and Guatemalen pants at Grateful Dead shows in the 80’s. Now that was lame. People made fun of me all the time for it and I didn’t get all worked up about it. The thing is that I’m still not wearing that stuff fifteen years later. It was a phase. Get it? ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/43 "2006-02-10T19:07:30Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > Wow, that was really deep. By the way, you look great in those MC Hammer pants. Really great. Thanks, but they’re actually blue jeans. The comment you quoted was, by the way, not aimed at you. If ever there was a textbook case of someone who _hadn’t_ managed yet to let go of high school, it’s someone who keeps her prom dress hidden away but ridicules someone who occasionally wears a class ring. Unfortunately, you’re holding tight to the bitter insecure part, rather than the open-minded, unafraid part. With luck, you’ll be able to recover the worthwhile part and purge the crud. This is a good place to begin to do it: nobody here knows what you looked/look like or how nice you really were/are. You can pretend to virtues you’re still working on, and get nothing but praise for your efforts. Good luck, I wish you the best, if you concentrate on yourself and your own needs, forsaking the obligation to judge others, I know you can be happier. **hajario** , no doubt the high school experience, separated by great swaths of distance and time, ranges from idyllic to hellish. Yours was apparently not only much worse than mine, but worse than I had believed possible. I’m sorry. My own children will have much worse memories of this portion of their lives than I am blessed with, and that knowledge tortures me. But I was asking people to preserve parts of themselves, not the institutions of their upbringing. A brutal and repressive school is not one you will celebrate by wearing its symbol on a jacket, but neither, I hope, will you cauterize all the nerve endings connecting you to everyone and everything that contributed to the thoughtful person you have become. Celebrate the boundless curiosity and uninhibited creativity and unlimited generosity that is the gift youth gives to the world. No one will ever say thank you; the only reward is that humanity gets to go on a while longer. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/44 "2006-02-10T19:07:56Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > So, because you went to a shitty school, the woman described in the OP s wrong for wearing an old letterjacket? Fuck me. Everything _is_ about you. No. Because he went to a shitty school, King of Soup should spare him the fucking melodrama. Could this have possibly been clearer? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/45 "2006-02-10T19:11:24Z")
I hate to see 20-year-old letterman jackets and old class rings because it indicates a sort of voluntary stunting of the person’s growth and development. I recently ran into a guy from high school. He was a football player, very popular with the girl, and he was a complete jerkoff. When I ran into him, he was wearing his old football jacket from 1990. He was going bald, going flabby, and he was still every inch the complete asshole he was 16 years ago. I quickly terminated the conversation and continued shopping. Grow. Develop. It’s OK. It’s natural. ---
**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/46 "2006-02-10T19:20:38Z")
> [@Surbey](#): > > This woman graduated 22 years ago and she still cant give up that school pride. > > I hate people like that Not to read you too literally, but is this really a compelling reason to hate someone? Many respectable members of society-- like Hank Hill, for example-- look back fondly on high school. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/47 "2006-02-10T19:21:57Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > No. Because he went to a shitty school, King of Soup should spare him the fucking melodrama. Could this have possibly been clearer? The \*\*King of Soup’s \*\* melodrama is no more connected to **hajario’s** HS experience than the woman in the letter jacket. Let me try to be clearer: hajario’s HS experience is his problem only, if he wants to make it one. The **King of Soup’s** melodrama doesn’t enter into it. **Hajario** will just have to savor the bad memories he apparently stores up like treasure on his own. ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/48 "2006-02-10T19:25:38Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > Bad memories of a toga party? Someone actually still **has** memories after a toga party? You must have been doing it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/49 "2006-02-10T19:29:49Z")
> [@Troy McClure SF](#): > > Two weeks after the first day of freshamn year. 😃 Absolutely. Why are we pretending that pride in your high school is a _positive_ quality? > [@Guinastasia](#): > > Touche. Honestly, I just happen to like my ring. > > Sometimes I’ll wear my mother’s class ring because I like it. A cousin of mine wears his grandfather’s classring. The part I didn’t understand in high school and don’t understand now is why the hell people bought those things in the first place. And it must be acknowledged that most class rings - I wouldn’t know whether yours falls into this category or not - are hideous. At my high school at least, the tradition of exchanging class rings and such didn’t seem to exist anymore, so I can’t understand why anyone would have purchased one. > [@The King of Soup](#): > > Surbey, one of the perks of actually getting past (not the same as merely graduating) high school is the ability to put on clothing without worry as to whether the local empty-headed snobs will give you a bad review on a pseudonymous internet message board (another benefit is no longer being one of said empty-headed snobs). Or, just maybe, she was one of the ones whom her high school is proud of, and she returns the sentiment because she views her life as a seamless whole and isn’t running away from a four-year chunk of it because of some irrational, festering sense of shame. Or maybe the jacket is her son’s, and she’s twenty years younger than she looks, which is better than any of us are doing, and therefore she can wear whatever she wants. I certainly don’t feel any irrational, festering sense of shame related to high school. I enjoyed high school. It was fun. That doesn’t mean I dress in an article of clothing specifically designed to suggest that I’m _in_ high school. Perhaps I’m an “empty-headed snob” for not pretending that the way people choose to dress and the messages they deliberately try to express with their clothing don’t exist at all. Or maybe you’re one of those people who never quite fit in with the “popular crowd” in high school and so you defensively resorted to the position that everyone who was capable of interacting normally with others was an empty-headed snob. Which subculture did _you_ pick to feel better about not being popular? Either way, dressing like you’re still in high school long after graduating makes you look like a tool. > [@The King of Soup](#): > > Remember your youth. Remember your uninformed ideals, your green talents, your innocently-chosen friends, your callow triumphs, your unripened dreams, your surprise and indignation that you could not actually fly. Let your past be a closet and not a tomb. It’s the only thing that will allow you to remain fully human as an adult. Uh, yeah. Also, remember writing silly, overly poetic purple prose. I did that when I was in high school too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/50 "2006-02-10T19:31:11Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > **Hajario** will just have to savor the bad memories he apparently stores up like treasure on his own. Where do you get that? I rarely think about those days. I responded to a suggestion and explained why it didn’t apply to me. I even quoted the relevant portion. You’re a slow one. ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/51 "2006-02-10T19:36:30Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > Wow, that was really deep. By the way, you look great in those MC Hammer pants. Really great. I used to have purple MC Hammer pants that had skateboarding lizards printed all over them. If I still had them, I’d wear them just to offend people. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/52 "2006-02-10T19:42:09Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > Unfortunately, you’re holding tight to the bitter insecure part, rather than the open-minded, unafraid part. Oh is that what my problem is? See, I thought it was that I think people that insist on clinging to their memories of high school 20 years after it happened are pathetic and sad. It’s like people that are 35 years old, and brag about their SAT scores. Gosh, absolutely NOTHING has happened in the last 20 years for you to be proud of, so you spout your SAT scores to make yourself feel better. Got it. > [@](#): > > With luck, you’ll be able to recover the worthwhile part and purge the crud. . And with luck you’ll be able to get over the melodramatic, over-the-top smarm-fest, and actually communicate like a real person, instead of a caricature of Dr. Phil. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/53 "2006-02-10T19:42:40Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I hate to see 20-year-old letterman jackets and old class rings because it indicates a sort of voluntary stunting of the person’s growth and development. I recently ran into a guy from high school. He was a football player, very popular with the girl, and he was a complete jerkoff. When I ran into him, he was wearing his old football jacket from 1990. He was going bald, going flabby, and he was still every inch the complete asshole he was 16 years ago. I quickly terminated the conversation and continued shopping. > > Grow. Develop. It’s OK. It’s natural. Bingo. This is really my only gripe with this sort of behavior. Admittedly, the woman’s circumstances might mitigate it, but I’ve seen this attitude and behaviors entirely too much in the area where I now live. For many folks here, High School \*was \* the high point of their lives…and that’s incredibly sad. Advertising it to the world is lame. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/54 "2006-02-10T19:47:09Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > Oh is that what my problem is? See, I thought it was that I think people that insist on clinging to their memories of high school 20 years after it happened are pathetic and sad. It’s like people that are 35 years old, and brag about their SAT scores. Gosh, absolutely NOTHING has happened in the last 20 years for you to be proud of, so you spout your SAT scores to make yourself feel better. Got it. > > And with luck you’ll be able to get over the melodramatic, over-the-top smarm-fest, and actually communicate like a real person, instead of a caricature of Dr. Phil. Now, now, now. It sounds like _someone_ isn’t remembering her callow triumphs and unripened dreams! ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/55 "2006-02-10T19:47:15Z")
> [@Stonebow](#): > > Bingo. This is really my only gripe with this sort of behavior. Admittedly, the woman’s circumstances might mitigate it, but I’ve seen this attitude and behaviors entirely too much in the area where I now live. For many folks here, High School \*was \* the high point of their lives…and that’s incredibly sad. Advertising it to the world is lame. Bingo X2. That’s all it is. Can’t we have the opinion that a jacket is lame without the psychoanalysis? ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/56 "2006-02-10T19:47:18Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#): > > I used to have purple MC Hammer pants that had skateboarding lizards printed all over them. If I still had them, I’d wear them just to offend people. 😃 I used to have a fluorescent pink and fluorescent green striped bat-wing shirt, with a wide black band around my hips, one slouching shoulder, and a matching mesh tank and leggings. If I still had that outfit, I would wear it for just the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![Uvula\_Donor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e19adc/32.png) [@Uvula\_Donor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uvula_Donor)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/57 "2006-02-10T20:02:04Z")
> [@Surbey](#): > > ITS BEEN 22 YEARS, GIVE IT UP! > > I had a woman get gas yesterday wearing her highschool lettermans jacket. Not uncommon because we have alot of “school spirit” in our town. But, what was peculiar was the wording on the back. “Class of '84”. This woman graduated 22 years ago and she still cant give up that school pride. > > I hate people like that Shut the fuck up and give me twenty bucks of regular on pump 5, gasjockey. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/58 "2006-02-10T20:05:45Z")
So what if they grow up into someone secure enough to wear whatever the hell they feel like wearing, for whatever or no reason at all, and not giving a shit about what the person at the gas station or a bunch of yahoos on the internet think? Is that ok? Keeeriiist people. It isn’t like the OP interviewed the person and they said “OMG! My letter jacket means the world to me!! I’d, like, die if I couldn’t wear it as a reminder of when Todd Footballer asked me to suck his cock in the balcony of the auditorium.” Why is it the only assumption it is safe to make about this woman is that she’s stuck in a high-school frame of mind? Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/59 "2006-02-10T20:10:58Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > So what if they grow up into someone secure enough to wear whatever the hell they feel like wearing, for whatever or no reason at all, and not giving a shit about what the person at the gas station or a bunch of yahoos on the internet think? Is that ok? > > Keeeriiist people. It isn’t like the OP interviewed the person and they said “OMG! My letter jacket means the world to me!! I’d, like, die if I couldn’t wear it as a reminder of when Todd Footballer asked me to suck his cock in the balcony of the auditorium.” Why is it the only assumption it is safe to make about this woman is that she’s stuck in a high-school frame of mind? > > Enjoy, > Steven Once again, for the slower-paced: your clothes say things about you. If you don’t care what you’re communicating by how you’re dressed, don’t worry about it. That doesn’t mean the rest of us are also obligated to ignore it. You may join **Bosda** in trying to come up with conceivable circumstances in which wearing your letter jacket 22 years later isn’t lame if you wish. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864/60 "2006-02-10T20:15:09Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > I used to have a fluorescent pink and fluorescent green striped bat-wing shirt, with a wide black band around my hips, one slouching shoulder, and a matching mesh tank and leggings. If I still had that outfit, I would wear it for just the same reason. Surely you’re not relying on what you _wear_ to offend people, any more than you can rely on what you say to persuade them. Still, I hope your self-esteem depends less on deprecation of what other people wear than you unintentionally profess. Good luck. **Excalibre** (was the username **Excalibur** already taken?), I had you pegged for someone who didn’t judge much by appearances, and I think my first impression was right. Surely you don’t conclude from the wearing of an old jacket one morning in the month of February that someone is clinging to an expired memory in a way offensive to you, do you? If my purple prose (it sure is, isn’t it?) irritates you, let us just fall back on this bit of pragmatism: complaining about how other people, whom you do not know, dress is a futile bit of snobbery, couched in uninformed assumptions about the reasons for choosing a random morning’s wardrobe. It won’t change the way they dress, and it won’t improve your standing among the elite, assuming they’re paying as close attention to you as they should. Actually, the overheated texts you produced in your youth might be worth another look, especially if they were informed by a more modest outlook. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-you-highschool-letterman-wearer/343864.md?page=4)