Shirtworthy

The story "Shirt Worthy" by David Giffels attempts to convey to the reader the significance of a concert. The man theme of the story was a separation of a tee shirt as something you just bought and the tee shirt that was worn and "battle scared" effectively making it a badge of honor. Mr. Giffles starts his memoir by introducing the concept of a shirt as a badge of honor by telling a story about his brother’s favorite shirt. An interesting thing to note here is that David has had no experience with his topic at an early age, but can still establish the topic by starting with stories about someone else’s that still relate to the overarching theme of the narrative. The story then shifts to many years in the future. Mr. Giffels announces this change in the time of his story by going into a bit of vague detail about his later life and then reestablishing his story to when he had children. By continuing the story "when I had children" Mr. Giffels immediately puts his reader in a mindset that many years have passed from the start of the story. This essentially divides the story into two parts, one relating to a young David Griffels and the other relating his older years after he has grown up, married and now has a family of his own..
Now in the second part of the story Mr. Griffels tells us about how he finally got his "badge of honor shirt”. The most interesting part of the story was when his son comes back from playing in the yard and is in tears that he ripped the band shirt his father had given him on a fence. The boy is clearly upset Mr. Griffels reaction (to his son at least) is nothing short of baffling, exclaiming that his son has essentially done what he couldn't when he was a boy by imbuing a shirt with a deep personal experience. What’s more is that Mr. Griffels ends up keeping the shirt and getting his son a replacement. In the end the shirt means so much to him not because of his own actions, but because of the actions of his son. This adds a nice touching ending to an otherwise light read.
I think that strongest part of Mr. Giffels writing lies in humor. He is very good at delivering little quirky one liners in the middle of his story that are short enough not to distract the reader from the point, yet still give a brief moment of humor to the reader. This is a very hard line to walk while writing, if you make your joke to long it distracts your reader from the generally point of you story, but if you make your joke to short it lacks humor and just makes you seem desperate for the reader’s attention. Mr. Giffels is able to walk this line consistently throughout his writing and I believe it really adds something to this story.