Boston. Wicked Smaht. A few fun facts to illustrate the point…back in the day of the thirteen colonies. You know… pre-1776 and all that, Massachusetts literacy rate was 88%. Too bad today’s fashion wasn’t in fashion in 1761…they could have read each other’s chests.

We’re visiting in the summer, but during the academic year here in the land of Boston College, MIT and of course Harvard, and the thousands of other centuries-old institutions of higher learning, the population swells by 240,000. In the summer there are still lots of t-shirt advertisements for these venerable enclaves. I’m not snobby about this…my children’s souvenirs will be worn by them back home and everyone will know where they’ve been this summer.

Our hotel is around the corner from Fenway Park (Pahk). Today is game day and the Red Socks are facing the Kansas City Royals. The Socks are the defending World Series Champions and today it’s 80 degrees and sunny. And we are planning a long day of “extra” walking.

These ideas are linked by the reality that my 13 year old son is sporting his blue New York Yankees baseball hat. Not really because he is such a fan, but because he loves that city and he’s been lucky enough to have purchased that hat during a game in Yankee Stadium. Even though he lives 3000 miles from that venue.

But I am thinking that for a city whose baseball team only broke their 80-something year losing streak in the last decade, my son’s attire might be considered sacrilege.

Why? I am expecting at least a comment. From someone. Perhaps someone on the “T” who is wearing a t-shirt with big socks printed on it. Why do they do that, I wonder? Who wants to wear shirts that have laundry on them? And there are lots of them. Why? And they’re all red. Ohhhhhh….it slowly dawns on me after I’ve also spotted several others wearing KCY t-shirts and “Kansas City Royals” hats.

It’s not that I’m stupid. I know who Ian Hanomansing is. I can forgive my 14 and 13 year olds blank looks. But as I hiss in my husband’s ear “Yes it is!!” I begin to doubt myself. I glance across the subway car isle where he is sitting very unassumingly in his red plaid shorts. I confess it was those plaid shorts that first caught my attention. I am trying not to be caught “glancing” (‘cause I’m so cool and so what if a national Canadian journalist is sitting RIGHT there?) but I lean into my husband’s ear for the convincing argument “Look at his t-shirt insignia!”.

It’s the CBC logo with the Olympic rings.

Nailed it. Which proves my point…a lot can be said about what you wear.