Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I wore one brand of shirt the entire 1,100-mile walk – Filson.

Several years before taking a walk, I bought a Filson shirt. It was their model for people who liked to fish. It had funny pockets with zippers and compartments and all such things that, as a person who never goes fishing, I never appreciated. I did appreciate two qualities of this long-sleeve shirt:

(1) It is made of what Filson calls “feather” cloth or handkerchief-weight cloth. This is lightweight, thin cotton. I wore this long-sleeve shirt on the beach in the summer in Alabama (100-degree days). It was just as cool as being shirtless. The cloth drinks water, then dries quickly.

(2) It is a long-sleeve shirt that blocks the sun. Filson advertises how much sun the shirt blocks – some sort of UV rating or something. I don’t understand UV ratings and I am not sure that there is any science in these UV things. What I do know is that I was never sunburned on the parts of my body covered by the shirt.

I loved this Filson shirt. I bought a second Filson shirt for the 2008 portion of taking a walk. I swapped shirts each day. Per the drying qualities, each evening I would wash my Filson shirt in the sink and then hang it soaking wet in the bathroom. It was dry in the morning. I could have survived with only one shirt.

I wore out my original Filson shirt. I bought a third one in 2009 for the second half of the walk. I had the same routine. Wear a shirt all day, have it soaked with perspiration, but never have any sunburn. Wash the shirt in the sink, let it hang overnight, and pack the dried shirt in the morning. Swap shirts each day.

Life is not perfect as there are stains and ignorant men who don’t know how to remove stains while they are still removable. I spilled mustard on one of my Filson shirts early in the 2009 portion of taking a walk. I didn’t notice it soon enough to remove it. Rats. My nice, light blue shirt has yellow and brown spots on it in obvious places.