Right On for Tie-Dye!

I love tie-dye. It speaks to my Woodstock Generation roots. I love it today as much as I did as a teenager.

My mom was thought of as so “cool” by the other neighborhood kids because she let my sister and I make our own tie-dye T-shirts. She put three giant lobster pots on the ratio with different dyes and let us create our own shirts. She even let me tie-dye some old formerly white bed sheets. I recall later taking them off to college where they served me well adorning the cement block walls or covering our Goodwill-purchased couch.

When I was a sophomore in high school our entire class made tie-dye shirts to wear as our uniform for the annual Field Day competition between the four grades. While I don’t recall how we fared that day, I do remember getting into a giant water balloon brawl afterward and finding that the tie-dye from my shirt now tattooed by entire chest. Took three days for it to wear off so I could return to my usual pastiness.

Sue and I bought tie-dyed underwear for a select few buddies who attended our wedding. We went on to buy tie-dye for all the firstborns of friends, feeling it was like a rite of passage. “Be born, wear tie-dye.”

There used to be a hippy-dippy lady at the Seaside Bazaar in Encinitas who was our main connection. While we bought loads of goods from her for more than a decade, I guess there were not enough compatriots to keep her ahead of the tax man and others. So she is gone, but we still proudly wear her wears.

It comes down to a basic: Tie-dye makes me happy. And what’s wrong with that? It’s hard to be droopy when you’re wearing tie-dye. People react well to it too.

I typically adorn Ethan in tie-dye when we go to highly populated places, like baseball games, Legoland or Disneyland. Who wants to say, “Have you seen my kid, he was wearing a white t-shirt?” In tie-dye, he stands out.

The hippies were right; tie-dye rules. And 40 years later, it’s still spreading good cheer.