Rite of passage: My high school jacket

The Glenbow Museum has this photo of Kate Andrews
High School the way I still remember it.

It took a little while to warm to the idea. I’m not sure why I finally decided to, but part way through Grade 11, I bought a high school jacket. White leather arms, dark baby blue melton, and “KA” in black lettering. It took me a minute to figure out my grad year because it seemed so far away. I recall counting it out a few times to make sure it was 1987. So that’s what was on one shoulder “Grad ‘87”, while on the other shoulder was my name, “Rob”. That was it.

And that’s what made me hesitate. I always thought you had to earn a jacket, like if you played football or basketball. But really, it was the letters you earned. Everyone was a student at Kate Andrews so they had just as much a right to wear their school colours as the jocks.

What kind of put me over the top was something my best friend Chris Vining said.

“We can wear our high school jackets when we’re on campus.”

I had not even thought that far ahead.

A couple years later, that’s in fact what we were doing.