It was 26 degrees when we go up this morning!

Brrr!

We were getting ready to leave the house this morning and Cynthia came out of the bedroom wearing her wool poncho. Man, I love this thing. It’s over 35 years old and she’s the original owner.

There’s also a great story that goes with it. When Cynthia was in high school she was given some money by her grandparents for her birthday. Her parents told her that the money should be spent on a new winter coat as she had outgrown her old one.

Cynthia figured that there was no way her parents would let her go through an East Lansing, Michigan winter without a new coat to wear so she opted to use the birthday money to purchase herself a new guitar.

When her mother asked her where she got the money for the new guitar she told them she used the birthday money from her grandparents. Her mother then asked her how she intended to buy a new coat for the winter and Cynthia replied “I guess you’ll have to buy me one!”

Her mother responded “Oh no I won’t. You’ll just have to make due this winter” and left it at that.

Cynthia protested that she would need a new coat to make it through the winter and her mother let her know that she should have thought of that BEFORE she spent the money on a new guitar.

She was not about to return the guitar and with no new coat and the harsh Michigan winter at hand Cynthia was forced to improvise.

She had this poncho, and while it was made completely of wool, it was certainly not intended for the kind of cold that she would have to endure that winter.

Cynthia spent that winter bundled up in as many layers of clothing as she could muster and topped it off with that poncho and made her way to the bus stop and back each day. She describes it as pretty miserable and I can only imagine just how bad it was.

All that trudging in the snow and day to day use of that poncho did not seem to be a problem, though.
35 years later and it still looks like new!

Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?

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