Even before I was making my own t-shirts, I was know for having quite an amazing collection of strange tees. The best part about this collection was that all of the shirts were found at the Salvation Army in Latham, NY. Unlike the tongue-in-cheek throw-back references to old pop culture that you find on shirts in trendy stores, the stuff I found at the Salvation Army was genuine and without intentional irony. Some of them were just so ridiculous that it made me really wonder about the shirt’s story. Why was it made? Why did the original owner buy it? Here’s an example:
and on the back:
Clearly, this shirt was printed for some fundraising event in connection with the Saratoga Hospital. Knowing this, however, does little in explaining the imagery on the shirt . What do sharks in a thunderstorm have to do with fundraising? What is supposed to be fun about fundraising and/or sharks in a thunderstorm? Mysteries such as this were why I always felt like an archeologist when I stepped into that Salvation Army. I never knew what strange relics I would uncover.
