Toledo Rockets
Physical Description: The front has a design on it in the traditional smaller, above the breast position. A rocket shape is formed by midnight blue triangular lines of varying thickness that outline clear whiteness. The rocket itself is pointed towards the top right. Beneath the rocket is "TOLEDO" formed by yellow letters that go at a very slight arch. All of the letters have a thin midnight blue outlining which at only one point in each letter intrudes into what would commonly expected to be yellow. I reckon it is to give a feeling of motion. The "T" is superscripted in comparison to "OLEDO". Slightly to the bottom right of the "O" is "TM", again in midnight blue.
As those who read the Relay for Life 2001 writeup know, principle guides me to not go through every single donor who did not actively participate in the production of the shirt.
The back of this shirt has many logos printed on it. The purpose of the back of the shirt seems to be to describe the conference alignment at a glance. Certainly, each school contributes to the Mid-American Conference, but the University of Toledo is most likely the institution that footed most of the bill along with the MAC. With this in mind, the back of the shirt's design starts in the top center with what could have been any old circle design. A thin bloody brick red forms an outline within everything inside of it acknowledges as its perimeter. A thicker forest green ring soon appears. "MID-AMERICAN" is written in clear white, in an athletic font, at an off-centered angled arch. "A" meeting happens; underneath the second "A" in "MID-AMERICAN" the black outline of the more stylized "A" in a polygonally stylized "MAC" just finishes. The inside of all the "A"'s to be discussed is clear white. The thing starts with 5 black lines shooting leftwards from the "M". The bottom left line extends the farthest out while the top left line is the shortest with points in between being the expected ends. The "M" is a conventional athletic "M" until it gets to the right side downstroke, that ends up truly not being totally within the "M" dominion. The top right of the "M" does not stick out as the other sides do, as the "A" needs to have a triangle within. The bottom right does act as normal, but far later as the stroke is exaggerated. The exaggeration develops because the "A"'s left stroke is the same as the right stroke of the "M". The middle stroke carries on like normal. The right stroke, which runs into the second "A". This "A"'s right stroke is pointy on top and straight at the bottom where it runs into the bottom right stoke. This bottom right stroke of the "A" then continues into the bottom stoke and slight up of the "C". The top of the "C" is pretty much a flip-flop of the double. A great difference is that the black outline of the right downstroke of the "A" closes off any continuation. The MAC polygon is placed over a circle of the same bloody brick red that constitued the perimeter. On either side of the MAC emblem is a conference alignment chart that has team logos in black and clear white. To the left is a small rectangular box with a thin black outline, bloody brick red fill, and clear white letters that state "EAST". To the right is a box with the same outline, forest green fill, and clear white "WEST" written inside of it. Underneath either box are eight emblems. The Toledo Rockets logo is in the Western division's bottom row on the left. It's logo is a black version of the rocket shape, that because it does not have "TOLEDO" written underneath it, shows more of the right fin.
This shirt is historic to the free shirt archive because it is the first shirt to be received in the P.O. Box. Most of the previous shirts were hand-delivered to me by the gracious donors. The SoBe shirts came in the mail, but not to the free shirt archive's P.O. Box. This shirt is vindication for the process of mailing me free shirts.
Donor Tom received this shirt in a drawing that was held in the Freedom Shrine of Carlson Library on the campus of the University of Toledo. As part of the week of awareness on the topic of book banning, a day of discussion was held in the Freedom Shrine.
I absolutely love the name Freedom Shrine for part of a building. Freedom ought to be worshipped by any citizen who has freedom. Although, instead of prayer for freedom, I think it is even better to exercise it.
DJ Supreme, who is just an MC, was scheduled to perform rap and then discuss hip-hop censorship. Entertainers, even those that consider themselves artists, have a way about being fashionably late. To kill time, the MC at large decided to do a drawing for door prizes. So much time was killed that Beth, someone who I do not know gave her ticket to Donor Tom because she had to leave. Donor Tom won second prize which took the form of this free shirt. He informed by email of his winnings and promised to get the shirt to me through the mail.
So I skip class to get a couple of things accomplished. One of those things is going to the post office to get some things accomplished. Upon opening the door, I lived the dream. Someone else out there cared enough to send me something! A free shirt, no less.
A difference between Donor Tom and I is that he is charged with overdressing, whereas I am usually considered an underdresser. I am sure the reader would have thought this anyway about the author, being that I have so many free shirts that I wear. The reader might not know Donor Tom outside of his contribution of fun time facts, though. He related to me that his co-workers made him the subject of a joke about his clothing in that they wondered if he would wear the shrit because it does not have French cuffs. The answer is obvious, he won't. He knows he has the free shirt archive to donate to, and so do you, reader.
Donor Tom and I are great friends despite of our difference because it reinforces a great agreement. We both have a disdain for the common conceptions of fashion. People who actually pay money to look just like everyone else. To pay money and think they accomplished an aesthetic feat for putting together a combination of consumptions into an "expression". Phooey! At least I say "Phooey!", Tom just outdresses everyone else around him. Oftentimes he wears suits, and at the very least he will wear a white shirt. In the real relaxed times, sure, he will wear a wifebeater (not as often as Boris wears his red wifebeater, however) but he will compliment that with dressy pants. So this shirt is better suited for me as I constantly wear shirts I have recieved for free.
As far as Toledo athletics, I am not aware of any of U of T's accomplishments. As I've spoken before, I am not really interested in college athletics. On visit to Toledo I have seen the Glass Bowl, where the Rockets play football. It is certainly one structure on campus that does not have a tan brick theme to it. I suspect that if they have a hockey team, it might be okay since there are probably some Michiganners who cross state lines, but I couldn't find mention if there is indeed a hockey team or not.
