Catherine Bell

My old army buddy* is a having a very big week. He is just returned from a year serving overseas. He just got engaged to wonderful girl. And on Saturday he will turn a whole 30-years-old.

In honor of his return and his birthday (there is no honor for getting engaged) I hoped to design a T-shirt that was amazingly patriotic and incredible and off-putting, all at the same time. But it also had to be classy enough that he could wear on post or at a Rolling Thunder motorcycle event or anywhere in Wyoming. And I needed it in a hurry.

Unfortunately, for the design’s sake, the bulk of my time went into researching if bald eagles are actually capable of crying since those were only patriotic eagle images I was able to find on the internets. I settled with a tough, non-weepy bird fearing that my friend might get hassled by his generals or whatever for having tears on his shirt. For everything else, I drew on my limited knowledge of military strategy, law, history and pride. I cobbled these jpegs together and produced an image of such patriotism that even the bravest and most stalwart eagle would get tremble-lipped at the merest glance with his tremendous eagle-vision.

It went off to the printers this morning, hopefully back in time for his birthday party. But as I was walking through the city today and noticed that my design was no worse than the kind of junk that the street vendors sell to the tourists and sap. Was I on to something? We’ll let the markets decide. I’ve since replaced/reconfigured** a few elements and now have a sure-fire DC collector’s item on my hands.



3 T-shirts for $10, hats for $8, plastic snow globes for $5.

*I say it like this so it sounds like I was once in the Army, though I certainly was not.
**The differences? Replace Bush’s face with my friends, Cheney’s with Kim Jong-Il and add the words “Welcome home! Thank you for keeping America safe from Kim and his terrible Taepodong 2 missiles” at the bottom. I figure either one will sell like gangbusters.