Back in the day, tee shirts morphed from underwear into street wear, adorned with pictures of heros, tie-dyed into fantastical patterns, or worn just plain.

Tees and jeans and sandals became the default dress mode on weekends and holidays for me; it's still true today. I can remember being a teacher during the 70's. Each week day I struggled into panty hose, high heels, straight skirt and proper blouse and tooled down the freeway to work.

I was miserably uncomfortable all day. The spike heels were hard to balance in, the pointy toes pinched my feet, the pantyhose chafed my legs (and kept slipping down). By the end of the day, I was tired and my feet hurt. All I wanted was the comfort of jeans and tee shirt and sandals. At work I was a pillar of middle class society; at home I was a hippie.

Today the dress code is much more relaxed and I come close to comfort each day (except for the shoes). I wear colored jeans (aka slacks) -- today's color is called cafe au lait -- and decorative tees or turtlenecks (turtleneck over a tee today). Comfortable shoes with socks.

At home I have a collection of casual tees that reflect concerts attended, the time a friend and I went on a major book-buying spree, a trip to Santa Barbara, a Disneyland event, and so on. Each time I buy a tee shirt to commemorate the event, and those are the tees I wear when I want to be totally comfortable.

Each has its set of memories. I thought of that as I folded my Barack Obama tee shirt last night and put it in the memory tee drawer along with the others. I will remember the campaign and our hopes for the future each time I wear it.

Tees to tease my memory.