they don't make 'em like they used to

My mother-in-law, whom everyone called Nona, was a girl during the Great Depression and learned many valuable lessons as she grew up. She would share these pearls of wisdom with us and we began to affectionately call them "Nona-isms." Things like "Don't buy something if you don't have money to pay for it" and "Don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish" (meaning if something is really cheap (in price), then it's most likely cheaply made and won't last) and "Always buy American when you can."

When my husband was a boy, he liked his clothes very soft with no rough edges and Nona liked a quality product at a reasonable price so Sears & Roebuck was where most of his clothes were purchased - everything from underwear to shirts and pants.

Kids dressed quite a bit differently when my husband was in elementary school than they do today. Girls wore dresses and boys wore button-up shirts and pants (usually jeans). My husband had quite a collection of button-up shirts but his very favorite one was this one...

Isn't he cute?

In fact, he loved it so much that he wore it for picture day in both 5th and 6th grade nearly 50 years ago! Nona once told me he wore the same five or six shirts - his favorites - every week. So that means this shirt was washed over 100 times while he had it. Then it was passed down to four nephews who each wore it quite a few times. 

One of the nephews, who now has a child of his own, recently told me he remembered wearing the shirt with great fondness - it was soooo soft! When all the nephews had outgrown it, the shirt was returned to us. We saved it for our children to wear... but they never did since we had daughters. So we put it away in case we had grandsons.

This year we gave the shirt to one of our grandsons. And he chose to wear it in the Spring Concert at his school.

And isn't he cute, too?

This shirt was worn by six BOYS over a 48-year span. And I wouldn't be surprised if at least one more grandson wears it. I think Nona most definitely got her money's worth out of this purchase. And I seriously doubt that a shirt purchased today would hold up as well. After all, we seem to live in a disposable world.