Like a time machine you can wear...

I have never really had many vices. Sweet tea is a big one, southern barbecue is another for sure, but my vice of late has been this: Things that take me back to my childhood. Enter HOMAGE tees....

Seeing this the other day, I was immediately transported back in time. The computer screen blurred before my eyes and I was suddenly standing in the living room of the apartment that I grew up in staring at the brown, white, green, and mustard yellow plaid sofa against the wall. About the time the Atlanta Falcons started ripping their opponents heads off with their Grits Blitz Defense I was becoming obsessed with football, as a lot of young boys do....but, I mean OBSESSED. My walls were covered with posters of great players like Roger Staubach, and pennants from different teams, and I went to bed every night having gridiron dreams, as secure and safe as I could be under these...

...but this was Atlanta, and at the heart of it all, the Falcons were my team...and I wanted to be Steve Bartkowski. That apartment we lived in had a big living room that connected to our dining room creating one long open space. I would move all of the furniture out of the way except the sofa ( the end zone) and set up the big corduroy TV pillow and my bean bag chair as my opponents. Satisfied with the playing field I would don my "not intended for actual use" plastic Falcons helmet and drop back, as I had seen Mr. Bartkowski do so many times, and throw the ball from the dining room with just enough loft to be able to beat it to the living room for a diving catch. I would do this over and over, crashing through the bean bag, diving over the pillow onto the sofa for spectacular, stadium erupting touchdowns until my mom yelled down at me to "stop doing whatever was making all the noise". Then, I would just sit there, sweat running down my little kid face under my plastic helmet, arms and knees ablaze with the stinging fire of so much fresh rug burn, trying to catch my breath, and with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

If you are in Columbus and can make it down to the HOMAGE store, do yourself a favor and go and snatch up your own bag o' memories. They are making some great tees and they have some really cool stuff to check out on the walls and in the cases and the staff is always super friendly. Oh, and they have Coke in the glass bottle....what on earth more do you need?