My T-shirt: The Factory

I’m already living the next chapter of my quest so I figure I better wrap up the first. Below the cut you’ll learn what San Pedro Sula, Honduras, is like and how I was received at the factory that made my t-shirt.

Go here to read about the Honduras experience in its entirety

(more…)

The adventure begins…

And so I’m off to discover Where Am I Wearing. The next time I post will be from somewhere far from Ohio. Until then, enjoy this audio-slideshow that introduces the quest.

WARNING: This feature is rated PG-13 for excessive body hair.

My T-Shirt: Soccer in the Jungle

Tired of reading? It’s your lucky day. Listen to a story about Kyle and me playing soccer in Mocoron.

A few notes about the recording:

- I sound a little like Joe Dirt. There’s nothing I can do about it. People from Ohio aren’t supposed to have a southern accent, but I do. Lucky me.

- I will be calling into the World Vision Report radio program during the WAIW? Trip. I’ll probably do so twice. Once, when I’m ready to leave Bangladesh from Cambodia and again when I’m back home. The format will be an informal chat with the host Peggy who sounds ultra-intelligent. Speaking of which…

- I think my favorite part of the soccer recording is when Peggy reads my bio at the end of my piece. When I wrote: “He lives in the middle of a cornfield near Greenville, Ohio.” I thought this would be kind of humorous. But with Peggy’s nice and clear, I’ll-believe-anything-this-lady-says voice, it sounds like I actually live in the middle of a cornfield.

My T-shirt: Welcome to the Jungle

My T-shirt: Welcome to the Jungle

“Toss me the shampoo.” Kyle holds out a hand.

“Man, did last night really happen?” I reach into the dugout canoe and grab the Head & Shoulders. The bottle falls short of Kyle and begins to drift down river. Kyle grabs it. The shampoo oozes out warm liquid and he gets a good lather going.

A bony cow crosses upriver. A scrawny calf follows, having to swim in the middle. You can tell by the pathetic up and down gyration of its head. They climb the opposite bank and mosey into the jungle.

“Can you believe what he did?” My eyes are shut tight and suds run down my face and back. “I was scared shitless.”

We both scrub at our mud-caked skin, revealing scratches.

Kyle and I have been on plenty of adventures together, most imaginary. Kyle, three years older than me, usually called the shots growing-up. There were the adventures of Black Man and Red Man. Both characters derived their names not from skin color or ethnicity but from armor color. They were both human cyborgs blessed with superpowers. But all cyborgs aren’t created equal and Kyle always got to be Black Man whose powers and intellect were far superior than Red Man’s. I was always Red Man, a sort of Tonto to Kyle’s Black Man.

When Kyle was Batman, I was Robin. Sometimes he even made me be Aquaman. The ability to summon whales is a pretty lame superpower when you are playing in a cornfield in landlocked Ohio. If I complained enough Kyle would bestow upon me new powers – never to exceed his own – only if I drank a freshly concocted magic potion that he had mixed in a test tube. It was usually purple.

Many evil enemies had fallen at our feet. We overcame horrendous monsters, ruthless villains, and maniacal plans against all odds. Missions and world saving were only interrupted for lunch, naps, and bed time. Our blood red Kool-Aid grimaces were feared by the evilest of enemies. Death played a roll in our imaginary adventures, but was never something that magic or healers couldn’t right.

Last night in the jungle we saw Death. It was slimy. It had teeth. And our guide whacked it over the head. It was a real adventure.

Rinsing off is easy. I hold my breath and submerge. I dig my hands into the rocky river bottom and hold fast against the current. The shampoo washes away. Pebbles and suspended sediment sneak into the lining of my shorts. I emerge soap free.

A naked boy stands on the near bank watching us. I wave to him and he runs off towards the village.

“Dude, for a moment, I thought you were a goner.” Kyle splashes water on his face and slicks back his hair. He tosses me the shampoo. We grab our extra-absorbent travel towels and walk up the bank to the village of Mocoron.

—-

Want to know what happened that night? Listen to the Audio slideshow or continue to Chapter 1: My T-shirt where you can read it yourself.

Where the hell is Lesotho?

I was browsing the racks today at Old Navy and many of their t-shirts were made in Lesotho. Leading me to ask the question:

WHERE THE HELL IS LESOTHO?

I didn’t actually ask anyone. Although, it would be interesting to see if any of the sales staff had a clue where Lesotho was and if they even cared to know. But, to be honest, I’m afraid to ask. To me those Old Navy sales people seem to be intimidating bundles of youth and joy. As if at a moments notice they will burst into a song and dance about a sweater vest on sale in the young adult section.

I don’t sing. I don’t dance. But I do google. Here’s what I found about Lesotho:

- “Lesotho” means the land of people who speak Sotho
- L. is completely surround by South Africa
- L. is the only independent state in the world that lies entirely above 1,000 meters sea level
- Child labor is a problem in L.
- GDP per capita = $2,113

Lesotho. Now I know. Now you know.

My T-shirt: MADE IN HONDURAS

A line of tourists stretches out from the ticket counter. They wheel their luggage - double-stitched, stain-proof, Kevlar seamed - a foot closer to the counter. And then they wait patiently.

A family of four smiles and laughs. Newlyweds lean on each other. When they booked the flight, the vacation in the Caribbean sun and sand seemed eons away. They thought the day would never come, but now that it has and they can look out of the terminal and see rain forest, they stand in line content.

The newlywed bride points to me and laughs, “Great T-shirt. Fantasy Island, right?”

“Yep, Tattoo.” I spare them the tragic story of Herve.

“Da plane, da plane,” says the groom. His bride giggles, melts in his arms, and begins to stroke the chest hairs poking out of his flowered, seersucker shirt. Their line moves forward and they wheel a foot closer to the counter labeled ROATAN.

“Where you guys going?” She stops giggling and looks from me to my brother Kyle with some concern.

Our line is made up of dark-skinned locals. Their luggage - woven plastic shopping bags that appear to be cut from picnic table covers, and cardboard boxes sealed with layers of duct tape - sits at their feet. Kyle and I started somewhere in the middle of the line, but are slowly losing ground. Those that were behind us would strike up a conversation with someone in front of us. Then they would grab their bags and scoot their boxes around us. We just might be invisible.

“Puerto Lempira.” I say as two older men cut in front of us, leaving us at the end of the line.

“Oh.” The bride turns her attention from us back to her husband’s chest hair. “Anyhow, love the shirt.”

“Thanks.” For a moment I consider explaining our situation. That my Tattoo shirt inspired this trip to Honduras and we are following him to his tropical paradise. That I had called Delta Apparel, the manufacturer of my T-shirt and they told me it was stitched together at a factory south of San Pedro Sula and I would try to visit it. But before doing so I want to experience Honduras and when I think of Honduras I don’t think AIDS ravaged, polluted industrial center; I think jungle. So we are off to one of the most isolated regions in North America. And while we are there we just might join a biologist on his quest to locate the elusive American Crocodile. That I was spending a couple of grand pursuing stories that would be lucky to pay me, in sum, a few hundred dollars. Or, perhaps I was just running away. That Kyle had been in college for 12 straight years studying exercise physiology and had put his studies on hold for a few weeks to accompany me on what everyone thought to be a silly quest. That mom probably made him come.

I considered explaining all of this to her, but decided she wouldn’t believe it. Hell, I can’t believe it. Besides, Kyle doesn’t know about the croc hunt.

My T-shirt: A Quest is Born

(Note: This is a continuation of the My Shirt narrative. The events below took place in 2005. To read the narrative in its entirety to date GO HERE.)

From our tiny apartment, I continued to weave the tales of my travels and try to sell them. I was published on a website which paid me $20 and then the Raleigh News & Observer published a story I wrote about spending the night in Castle Dracula in Romania. I was giddy. I got paid $150.

I have made less than $300 writing.

I want a career as a writer. Annie wants a commitment. We’re doomed.

We’ve lived in this apartment for a year and a half. Annie has decided she doesn’t want to be a nanny anymore and is going to move back home. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess I’ll move back home too.

The bathroom is a sauna. I stare down at the floor. Tattoo from the early 80’s TV-hit, Fantasy Island, smiles up at me from my T-shirt that sits atop the pile of clothes at my feet. It’s my favorite T-shirt. I wear it more than I should, often smelling it before putting it on. Annie thinks that’s kind of gross, but it’s something you get in the habit of doing when you travel a lot and have to do laundry by hand.

Tattoos eyes sparkle with mischief; his smile is too wide for his small head; his comb-over is perfect. “COME WITH ME TO MY,” hangs over his head and “TROPICAL PARADISE,” sits just beneath his dimpled chin.

My cousin Brice bought it for me when I lived in Key West. People that remember Fantasy Island and Tattoo’s catchphrase “Da plane…Da Plane,” get a big kick out of my shirt. A bit of Nostalgia, a dash of light-hearted humor, it’s a perfect T-shirt. But the life of Herve Villechaize was quite tragic.

Herve was a dwarf. Ridiculed throughout school in France, he moved to the USA to pursue a career in the arts. While living in New York City he worked as an artist and painter before turning to acting. His breakout roll was as Nick Nack in the James Bond film Man with the Golden Gun, which led to a roll as Tattoo in Fantasy Island. Destined to forever be a sidekick, Herve wanted to be paid the same as FI star Ricardo Montablan. The producers wouldn’t and he left the show. He turned to alcohol and killed himself at the age of 50.

But all of that is easy to forget while looking at his smiling face and the text beckoning me to follow him.

I pick up the shirt.

“Tattoo, where is this tropical paradise of yours?”

I look at the tag: MADE IN HONDURAS.

Call it the birth of a quest or a crazy escape plan from the rural Ohio lifestyle that waits, but something clicks - as long as I keep moving, reality can’t catch me.

I get in the shower and, for the first time in a long time, start to whistle.

My T-shirt: I’m a writer

My quest started in 2005 with a trip to my T-shirt’s factory of origin in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

With the next chapter of the quest now less than 3 weeks away, it’s time I fill you in on what inspired the quest and what exactly went down in Honduras (A little hint: At one point in time I violate every factory workers’ Human Right to NOT see me stripping).

I’ll be using a mix of narrative, past blog posts, and current thoughts over the next few weeks to tell this first Chapter which I’ll call: My T-shirt.

In the PAGES section you will find a link to My T-shirt. I will be updating the page with each new contribution to the chapter. In the end, it will read as one continuous document from start to finish.

So without further ado, the first installment of the first chapter…

My T-shirt: I’m a writer

I’m in the thinking man position. Except I’m trying not to think and, instead of sitting on a granite stool, I’m sitting on a porcelain toilet.

In case you were wondering, my business is over.

Steam billows out from the shower and has coated the mirror revealing my most recent drawing – a smiley face.

I’m not smiling.

In 2001 I set out on my first trip. I went around the world. I remember being in Byron Bay Australia at a café across from the beach reading the newspaper and drinking a hot chocolate. (I hate coffee, but I liked to dabble in the coolness of the café scene so I liked to have a nice big steaming mug in my hand. The fact that the barista looked at me like a fool when I ordered a hot chocolate was something I chose to ignore.) An article in the paper said that people aren’t ready to settle down and become “adults” until the age of 26. This was good news. I was 23. I tore out the article and later called Annie, my girlfriend of five years, who was at college in Ohio. She got real quiet.

Now, I’m 26.

Annie and I live in a 600 square-foot apartment near Raleigh, North Carolina. She moved here to take a position as a nanny when all she really wanted to do was get a job and live within a one hour radius of her family back in Ohio. I didn’t ask her to do this, but she did it for me, for us. Annie knew that I wouldn’t move back to small town Ohio where there were few opportunities for a writer/SCUBA instructor.

I moved here from Key West where I had just finished working the spring/summer season as a SCUBA instructor. It was a dream job that I could only stand for six months and then I needed a breather from the diving tourists and all of there macho nervous energy, sea-sickness, and creative ways to try to harm themselves and others while on the boat and underwater.

Key West is also where my writing career began. The Key West City Paper was the first publication to carry my column, Travelin’ Light. Usually the column appeared on the same page as an ad for the SCRUB CLUB, a massage parlor with very expensive and all-inclusive “massages” given by women with large fake breasts.

Here’s a description of the column from some of my marketing materials (note: these marketing materials don’t work very well):

Through humility and humiliation, wisdom and naïveté, Travelin’ Light is a weekly column that introduces its readers to people, places, and adventures both domestic and exotic, touching and hilarious.

With humor and a conscience, Kelsey Timmerman inspires those readers with the travel bug to get out and see the world and brings the world to those readers who may not have the opportunity to go where Travelin’ Light takes them.

Travelin’ Light: The Land of Tourons

I contributed for the pleasure of contributing. At one point I convinced Miko the editor to pay me. Then the hurricanes came and there was no more Key West City Paper.

I told myself that I would no longer contribute anything for free. The next paper to carry Travelin’ Light paid me $5/column or about one-half of one-cent per word.

I was a writer.