Louise Silk, a South Side fiber artist who makes memory quilts, created this quilt for her daughter Isadora three years ago when she moved into a new apartment in Squirrel Hill. It's made from the favorite T-shirts she collected during high school. It took Ms. Silk more than 20 hours to make.

By Virginia Linn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As we approach Valentine's Day, love isn't always found in chocolates or roses or candlelit dinners. Sometimes it's wrapped up in a worn cotton T-shirt.

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	Dave Decker's T-shirt recalls a hilarious incident he shared with a friend years ago. Click photo for larger image. Related article History of the T

Abbey Helbling cherishes an old T-shirt her dad brought home from a political rally in 1997 that says, "Putting Pittsburghers First." Even though she lives in Shaler, years later she was captivated by Bob O'Connor and felt the shirt expressed his mission. So she wore it through his mayoral run, on election night and, finally, as she kept vigil during his illness. And she was wearing it the night he died.

"It is a shirt that holds a special place in my heart," she says.

Craig Brown of McDonald took a red polo T-shirt on a honeymoon cruise with his new bride 10 years ago and has taken it on every cruise since -- seven of them. "It reminds me of how things can be brand-new and exciting and then as comfortable as can be years later, bringing back great memories."

Kathleen Koepfer of Moon loves her T-shirt from the Michael Jackson Victory Tour in Cleveland in 1984, but she adds that each of her many tees has a story. "It's like having a portfolio of your life that you can get your arms into," she says.

Most of us have a special T-shirt that evokes so many memories, so much emotion, that we'll never part with it. We asked Pittsburghers to tell us about their favorite T-shirts, and why they'll never give them up. Their stories:

Super Strauss

I have a Superman T-shirt from the '70s. You know the type, bright blue with the big S taking up practically the entire front side. But mine is from a family reunion that took place long before my birth. Each adult member of the Strauss family was given a Superman T-shirt at the reunion, but they all said Super Strauss, with Super above the S and Strauss below.

Anyway, a few years back, when I was 15 or so, I was caught in the vintage T-shirt craze and was searching through garbage bags full of old clothes in my mother's basement. I came across a bunch of amazing T's, including some old Pittsburgh Super Bowl and World Series Championship shirts, but the one that stood out was this peculiar Superman shirt with Super Strauss written on it. My mother told me the story of the reunion, and that it was my father's shirt. My father passed away a month before my birth, and it was amazing to have this piece of him, especially at a time, 15 years old, that a boy most needs his father.

I have never let this shirt out of my sight since that day and now have it in Sacramento, Calif., where I am a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. It has probably provided more emotional support than any T-shirt.

-- Craig Strauss, Bethel Park

Wrapped in a hug

My favorite T-shirt is white with a large purple and gold butterfly on the front. I first wore it on May 16, 2004, as family and friends gathered to Walk for "Hope" in memory of my niece Kaitlin Vasilich. Kaitlin lost her battle with a mitochondrial disease on Feb. 8, 2004, and we were determined to raise awareness of the disease and celebrate the life of an amazing 17-year-old.

As the years have passed, I have found that this shirt is a favorite of many people there that day. It has been worn under dress shirts and sweaters, athletic uniforms, as protection from the sun at the beach and at the end of the day as a pajama top.

For me it's like a big hug each time I put it on.

-- Rose Schussler, Trafford

Simpler times

When I was a senior in college, I attended a Christmas concert that was put on by our community choral union. I attended with my friend Matt and my future wife, Bridget. We had arrived later than we expected so got seats near the front of the concert hall. This turned out to be a huge mistake.

As we sat down, we perused the list of songs on the program. Just as the concert started, Matt leaned over, pointed at a song title in which the first word was a lone "W," and he whispered to me, "What?"

I burst into laughter and immediately stifled it. Matt began to laugh. Hard. We both were infected with what some call the "church laugh." (Laughter that is made worse only by the fact that it is completely inappropriate at the time.) Everyone behind us could see that we were obviously choking on our own laughter. The 100-plus choral union could see us laughing because we were sitting near the front.

We laughed for 15 minutes. Our guts hurt. Our eyes watered. Finally, it subsided. We were able to control ourselves for another 10 minutes. That is, until they got to the chorus of the song that Matt had pointed out. It was a Polish carol entitled "W zlobie lezy, ktoz pobiezy." Now, when the chorus came around, the "W" didn't appear to be sung. Matt leaned over again and whispered, "Ohhhhh. The W is silent." Of course, this started the uncontrollable laughter again.

The following Monday, Matt came to my dorm room and threw a white T-shirt at me. It read in giant letters, "A Silent W."

That was six years ago, and I still wear the shirt. It is in rough shape at this point, but I love when people ask about the meaning. It reminds me of a simpler time in my life, and I enjoy thinking back to that year.

-- Dave Decker, Oakmont

Frantic mom

My favorite was a Mother's Day gift from my daughters years ago -- they were probably about 10 and 12 (now 26 and 24). It is navy blue with a stick figure drawing of a frantic Mom, shaking her fist and saying, "I could just scream." One of my favorite sayings did not go unnoticed by my girls. In the summer I wore it to the beach, and many a Mom would smile and comment-- commiseration is global.

It is pretty tattered now and not wearable, but I still smile when I get it out and look at it. Now with one daughter married and gone and the other marrying this summer, I will have only my 15-year-old son left to "just scream" at. Lucky him.

-- Sally Davis, Plum

Remembering Aunt Ethel

The fondest desire of my Aunt Ethel Feldman, the oldest of my father's five sisters, was to live to be 100 -- and to celebrate her 100th birthday in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, she died at age 98. At her funeral, all of her first generation nieces and nephews decided to celebrate her 100th birthday in Las Vegas anyway.

We arranged a long weekend with a stay at the Bellagio, with three elegant dinners at some of the finest restaurants in the city, and attendance at Cirque du Soleil's "O." At each dinner, we had special pre-planned meals with our own menus celebrating her 100th birthday.

The highlight of the trip was the presentation of T-shirts for everyone marked with: "Aunt Ethel -- 100 years. Wish you were here." We gathered as a family on the lobby steps of the Bellagio Garden for pictures.

There were 18 of us in attendance at that celebration. Since then we've held a series of reunions, every two or three years, for the entire Feldman family. Our next one will be held here in Pittsburgh in June 2008, and at this point we should certainly top 80.

-- Frank Feldman, Greenfield

A special summer

It was the summer of '92, and the kids were finally old enough to travel without causing major vehicular catastrophes.

For our first real family vacation we chose a faraway, fabled place -- North Carolina's Outer Banks. Quiet, serene, it was everything we had hoped it would be.

Our oldest son, then 15, who not surprisingly grew up to be an attorney, lobbied -- hectored may be a better word -- that the Mendelson males all get the same T-shirt, all from The Seventeenth Street Surf Shop. Going along with anything that would keep peace in the family, I agreed.

We finally settled on royal blue, with a Leonardo da Vinci-like map of the heavens on the back. Parading proudly, we wore them everywhere.

Fifteen years is long in the life of a T-shirt. Frayed and faded, outgrown and worn out, my children's have long since gone in the rag bag. Mine, however, nearly pristine, is clean, well kept, my favorite. Stars, store logo and still blue, it's a fond memory of when the kids were still kids, when they weren't scattered to the four winds, when we all piled in the family station wagon and, singing along with the tape player, went for our blissful week at the beach.

-- Abby Mendelson, Squirrel Hill

A legal union

My favorite T-shirt memory concerns how I met my husband. During the summer of 1990, we were two recent law school graduates who had not yet met. It was a stress-filled summer as we were each taking the same prep course for the upcoming bar exam, held at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. He approached me and struck up a conversation. We always get a laugh about the T-shirt he was wearing on that first approach. It said: "Make Love, Not Law Review." This seemed to sum it all up and must have worked, as we are still together and now have three sons.

-- Gina Roso Brownfield, Bethel Park

Threads of memories

In the spring of 1997, I bought a very sorry-looking house with the idea of renovating it. My soon-to-be wife thought I was nuts, but she didn't stand in my way. She is the kind of person who didn't need to push; she had the patience and strength necessary to wait until you fall down on your own. So we go to the closing, and, afterward, with a perfectly straight face, she gives me a gift -- a black T-shirt. She had it custom lettered: "197 Glenwood Project Manager, aka Magician." I laughed until tears came.

This lovely woman is no longer my wife. Sadly for me, her life took her somewhere where there was no room for me. The house was sold last year as one of the most expensive houses in the neighborhood. The buyers loved the quality of this now near-perfect house.

The T-shirt is folded softly in a corner of my dresser drawer, where the executor of my estate will find it. In this one scrap of cloth is humor, love, pain, work, ambition, success, failure, sadness, joy and nearly everything else that a human being can feel. It hides between its threads the memories of the happiest and saddest 10 years of my life. It's my favorite T-shirt.

-- Just another guy, Scott Township

Led Zeppelin rules

I have dozens of favorite T-shirts. I am a thrift store junkie who usually prowls around the outlying suburbs of Pittsburgh (North Huntingdon, Sewickley, McKnight Road, Tarentum) or any city I am in, looking for unique T-shirts. I own more than 70 distinct T-shirts -- whether it be from an asphalt paving company from Latrobe or a skate board shop in Greensburg.

But my favorite T-shirt of all would have to be my tattered Led Zepplin -- Houses of the Holy T-shirt, that depicts the cover art of the classic LP. I bought the T-Shirt when I was 17 and living and working in Israel for a year. I went to a T-shirt vendor in a mall in Tel Aviv, found a design I enjoyed, the guy applied the decal to the simple black cotton tee and the rest is history. I've worn this shirt to countless college parties, concerts and public events and distant travels in which wearing my lucky Led Zepplin shirt was necessary. I have been offered outrageous sums of money for this classic style T-shirt, but it's the "hope diamond" of my collection.

I spin records as a disc jockey, and I tend to wear distinctive T-shirts when I am out performing, but I always play with more confidence and flair when I am wearing this Led Zepplin T-shirt., with its decal cracking under the dozens upon dozens of washes that make the image faded yet present, classic yet worn. But I know that as long as I have my Houses of the Holy tee, I can do anything.

-- David Simon, Greenfield

Time Warp Trio

My favorite T-shirt is my Time Warp Trio shirt. Time Warp Trio is a book series/TV show about three boys who have a magic book that allows them to time travel.

Time Warp Trio is my favorite book series. I really wanted a Time Warp Trio shirt but they didn't make any shirts like that so I made one myself. I also decided to write to the author of the series Jon Scieszka.

After a few letters and several months he finally wrote back to me. We started to write back and forth. One day I found out that Jon Scieszka was coming to Pittsburgh to lecture! I had to see him! Since I am a frequent contributor to My Generation columns in the Post-Gazette I decided to review his latest book and to try to get an interview with him. I wrote him and asked him for an interview and he said Yes!

The interview was published the day of the lecture and I went to the lecture in my Time Warp Trio shirt. I got to go backstage and meet Jon. He signed my Time Warp Trio shirt and it was awesome. That made it even more special. I love my Time Warp Trio shirt.

-- Sarah Troetschel, Munhall

Forty T-shirts for a reunion

The year is 1978, a big family reunion is planned -- big question of the day: What to do to make it special other than the fact that we'll all be together?

My father, Thomas F. Durkin. Occupation: occupation, real estate broker. Dress attire: suits, always business suits. Father of 11.

My mother Jane L. Durkin. Occupation: stay-at-home mom with nine daughters and two sons to nurture. Dress attire: dresses and skirts, always.

Never, ever had I seen either one of my parents in a T-shirt. No way.

Until...

As a lark, I asked my girlfriend how to make our reunion a little more special. "T-shirts," she replied. So it began. We designed and printed "Durkin Dynasty -- 1978" shirts for all 40 people.

I still have one of the originals, signed by all, which I have made into a pillow -- always to remember and always to hug.

But my favorite is mom and dad and all of us in our T-shirts.

-- Virginia Ingoldsby, Greenfield

The T-shirt as icebreaker

My favorite T, I think, is one I made myself to wear to my first Farscape fan convention in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 2002. I made it with an inkjet transfer that I printed at home and ironed on myself to an inexpensive black T.

On the front it has the name of the event and my online handle (since most fans knew each other from message boards and mail lists). The back was a personal FAQ "about the person in front of them" -- telling them how to pronounce my handle, that I was one of several fans named Jackie, and that "I love chocolate (did they have any?)"

It was a big hit any time I had to stand on a line at the convention, and a great icebreaker. I met a lot of people at that convention and others like it, many who are now my very best friends, and to a great extent, family.

The power of T-shirts as an icebreaker and a connection to others was not lost on me. I began designing fan-related t-shirts not long after that convention, and still do. I don't really make any money at it, but the shirts make a lot of people very happy. If I can make people feel as happy as I did the first weekend I wore my first creation, then I am a lucky woman indeed.

-- Jackie Gannuscio, Zelienople

Lived there and I'll prove it

The year was 1981. I was employed by Geosource as a seismic crew surveyor in oil and gas exploration. The crew was working in Clark County in southern Alabama. One of the trucks needed its shock absorbers replaced. I sent the crew to the field and drove to the edge of Jackson to the service station, and plopped down in the front office on the luxurious couch which happened to be a dirty old bench seat yanked from a rusted sedan years earlier. It was January and quite cold, so I dressed in layers.

Five minutes hadn't passed when I noticed that a Geosource survey truck was approaching the service station. I was caught off guard, as I didn't even know another crew was in town. The driver parked, came inside and sat down next to me. He looked surprisingly familiar, and I was racking my brain trying to remember where I'd met him.

After a brief hello -- he wasn't much for words -- I pressed him to talk.

"Where you from?" I asked.

"Virginia," he said quietly, and seemed to hope I would stop there.

"Oh... what town?" I prodded. He seemed distant, but I was sure I had met him..

"You wouldn't know it."

"No, really, what town? I know Virginia." My curiosity was building.

"Just a little town in southern Virginia. You wouldn't know it." By now I could tell he was annoyed while at the same time my brain was reeling. I was sure now that I knew him.

"Seriously, I used to live there. Where you from?"

"Radford, near --

"Christiansburg, down the road from Blacksburg!" I nearly shouted, cutting him off, as I suddenly remembered him. "You used to drink Heinekens with me on Wednesday nights right out of the pitcher at Mr. Fooz!" We both attended Virginia Tech and I was remembering back four years when Heineken was the beer special on Wednesdays at the local foosball pub.

"Oh wow. Yes, I remember you, too, now!" He finally lightened up a bit.

I went on to tell him that I hired onto Geosource in Christiansburg where I was living in 1978. What a rush. The hair was practically standing on my neck and I had something like a hot flash. I unzipped my jacked and looking down, I unbuttoned my shirt. I broke a sweat.

"You are not going to believe this," I then blurted. I stood up and opened my shirt. Underneath all my layers there it was. My precious Blacksburg Virginia Mr. Fooz T-shirt. You could hear a pin drop.

-- David Marks, Duquesne

The Green Weenie T

I am a T-shirt collector with many vintage and unusual selections.

Perhaps my two favorite are my 1972 Rolling Stones North American Tour & my rebirth of the Green Weenie, circa late '70s.

I purchased the Stones T at Heads Together in Squirrel Hill and today it is virtually see through, yet remains archived by me in my attic, a cherished relic of The World's Greatest Rock n' Roll Band. It features a giant eagle (no, not THAT one!) morphing into a jet to carry the Bad Boys of Rock n' Roll across the pond.

The Green Weenie T, the brainchild of Bob Prince in the mid-'60s, received a rebirth in the late '70s by none other than the Gunner himself. The shirt blares ' Get 'em Green Weenie,' with a caricature of the pickled-looking frank menacingly spinning his 'wheels' next to the caption. The Green Weenie was actually a good luck device that Prince thought wielded magic powers to spur our beloved Buccos to victory. It was green plastic with 'beans' inside that one would shake when the Bucs needed to rally. Some may say that it may have been a precursor to the beloved Terrible Towel....

After Prince introduced it to the public during a broadcast, they sold like hotcakes and spawned T-shirts like the one that I have from its rebirth. By the way, in keeping with the 'cool' style of the time, I cut mine into a midriff and wore it when playing basketball.

--Chris Retenauer, Blackridge