Patches (not a cat's name!)

             

            After the t-shirt quilts, I thought about what I could do as an “Ed” memorial for my kids. One of the things I had remaining from my husband’s belongings was an old, wrinkled bag full of patches.

Yes, you read that right, and yes, I wrote that right! A brown, paper lunch bag, wrinkled with decades of use.

The bag, soft and wrinkled, contained a decade of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) patches--every year beginning their first year at the EAA Air Show in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, in 1975 through 1985. Ed’s family were big airplane “buffs”, and indeed, his dad had a pilot’s license for a long time. They would often regale everyone with stories of flying around the country back “in the day”.

Ed’s family, every year, would camp out all week at Osh Kosh, for the big air show. His mom had quite the set-up with tents and a screen tent complete with a Coleman stove and a small picnic table.

Every year his parents became like a commercial for Osh Kosh and tried diligently to convince me..and Ed…to go with them to Osh Kosh. They had photo albums of trips they would bring out for us to see, and stories of different airplanes and different people who were there in past years.

I think it was similar to friends we knew who would travel with the whole family every year right before Christmas, to Disneyland. Or how my family tried to plan Christmas Eve every year with my aunts, uncles and cousins. Or a family fishing tournament on Mother’s Day.

But unfortunately, planes were not something I had any knowledge of, or interest in. And the deals in the shopping tents that were set up every year did not entice me either. As a 20-something recently wed, financially struggling couple, our time and resources were minute, and sadly, this was simply not something I was interested in.

Ed had enjoyed it though and collected an EAA patch for every year he attended the air show beginning at age 10 in 1975. He only missed one year, 1984.

All the patches Ed had stored in the soft, wrinkled, lunch bag. The patches, documenting his family’s camping trips to Wisconsin, still remained decades later.

Do I regret the decision not to attend with them? No. Well, maybe at least once to share that experience with Ed. However, years later his parents took our kids at one time or another. It would have been fun for all of us to attend together, but it never worked out that way or, was never a priority on our radar.

I never did make it to an EAA Air Show.

The “patches bag” also contained some scout patches from when Ed was a young scout himself. I could not simply throw the patches away, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them. Each patch represented something to Ed, something he was passionate about, time he spent on this earth. This was a part of him, and how could I simply toss them in the trash to never be seen again?

I decided to use the patches for what they were originally intended—indeed for what all patches are intended! To be attached to an article of clothing!

I began searching secondhand stores for something that would lend itself well to patches, and that might prove useful for one of my kids.

For one I found a great letterman-type jacket, with a body of black material and arms made of faux leather. I split the patches in half and sewed the EAA patches from the 1980s on the front, right panel of the jacket. Then I sewed the scout patches on the left front panel.

At the very top of the right arm piece, I sewed a “New London Tigers” patch (Ed’s high school), and on the other arm an army patch from our time with the 294^th Medical Detachment (Iowa City, Iowa).

My other, an over-the-road truck driver, had very little with him in his cab while on the road. I considered a jacket, but then decided a messenger bag might suit him well with his travels.

An army surplus store had just the bag--a tan, messenger bag--that I thought would work. I sewed patches remaining of the air show from the 1970s and a few scout patches on the front and back of the messenger bag.

I gifted them to my kids that Christmas. It felt good making use of the “treasure” from Ed’s past, without continuing to carry the aged, wrinkled lunch bag.

Similar to the gift of an organ donation, I took something from Ed and created something new to pass on to my kids, hopefully providing a useful way for them to remember him for decades to come. Something that contained pieces of Ed weaved into something created with my blood, sweat and tears. (Yes, blood. Do you know how difficult it is sewing patches on a messenger bag?)

Oh, and the lunch bag? I threw it away.