Suits me.

One rainy night in June, my parents loaded the family into the car and drove off to buy me two suits. I had recently graduated from college. This was another gift, after so very many they had already given me.

Along the way a tire blew out. Dad got the car to the side of the road. I was going to help put on the spare, but Mom wouldn't let me. I had dress shoes on; I was going to be measured, going to try on jackets and pants; I had to stay neat and dry. My poor dad got soaked jacking up the car with us in it, changing the tire, somehow always keeping his cigarette lit no matter how hard it poured.

At the venerable clothing store, I was given the workup by the tailor. No off-the-rack here. Not when it came to formal and business wear. Colors were chosen -- one black, one blue with pinstripes. Chalk marks flew up and down the legs and arms like drawings of little birds. Maybe a tie or two selected as well. Ready in a week. And so was my kit prepared for the launching of my brilliant career.

It was an era where no man on earth would have gone to an office-job interview in anything less than a suit and tie and shined-up shoes. But even then, my parents' gift seemed very old-fashioned. I wasn't the first in my family to graduate college; although my parents had never gone to college, I wasn't even in the first in the car that night to have graduated. It was not that they were stuffing me into a uniform and insisting I bring home the bacon. It was that they were proud of me, something they didn't say in words, but that gift, that rainy night, showed me their pride more than anything words could have said. I wore both suits at least once a week for years as I commuted into Manhattan and went to work.

I bring this up because I gave away the blue suit yesterday.

The black suit was a lighter, almost summer-weight fabric, and eventually I wore it out. The blue pinstripe was stronger, and it survived everything but my appetite; I got too fat for it. I always swore I was going to drop the weight and wear it again, but I never did, even when I was jogging, even when I gave up beer. Nowadays, following my back injury, I can only do gentle exercise, if walking two big burly dogs can be gentle, and without exercise I have never been able to drop anything more than a few pounds. It was time to let this suit go.

Here's the thing -- I have plenty of old clothes that need to go. Others can use them; some of them are in very good shape. Some I've never liked even if they fit. Why should I keep them? And a suit, cleaned and still in good condition, ought to be in every man's closet. I have suits that fit. Someone could use that blue pinstripe; in fact, I just this morning saw an article on a charity that needs suits. But for years I wouldn't part with it, mostly for sentimental reasons. Yesterday I decided it had been long enough. My parents have been gone for quite a while now. My suit may be a little out of date, but there's nothing wrong with it. So I put it in the clothes collection box down at the church.

I hope it brings someone else good fortune. It certainly was always good for me. When I wore either of those suits, I always felt like a million bucks, or at least a few hundred grand.

Now I'm looking at other things with which I can part. Funny, but when I let that suit go at last, my first thought was, I think I can let anything else go now, too.