Hostile T-shirts at Odds

I've been thinking about a family we saw at breakfast last week in our Minneapolis hotel. I noticed a skinny blond boy about 13 years old bouncing around in the breakfast bar, deciding what to put on his plate. I smiled, thinking about the energy some boys seem to radiate and how they just can't help it. Then I noticed the t-shirt he was wearing, pictured on top to the right, and my good feeling about him was gone. Why wear something with a hostile message like that? I watched him sit down with at the table I assumed was his family.

There was another younger boy, maybe ten or 11 years old, with a striped rugby shirt on, spooning up cereal. Across from him sat their mom, her gaze unfocused, wearing a plain black shirt and black leggings, with longish blond hair that could use a wash, an empty plate in front of her. To her right was the dad, finishing a mound of eggs, potatoes, toast and sausage. He was wearing the t-shirt on the left.

Nobody was talking. The dad looked like maybe life had been pretty disappointing and he didn't know what to do about it. He couldn't have been more than 40, but his face and body were puffy, skin mottled, and he was dealing with going bald with a comb over configuration. I figured my husband and I looked like the enemy to him, meaning the label "liberal elites:" retired, healthy, and, if our technical clothing gave away that we were there to cross country ski (Minneapolis has an amazing park system in case you don't know), his suspicions would be confirmed. I'm sure I had my judgey face all over him, if he had cared to look.

Those t-shirts have been bothering me ever since, mostly trying to understand why that father and son wore them, but there was something else nagging at me. This morning I finally figured it out. I could have said to the dad, "I guess your feelings would be hurt if I stomped on the flag, but I have a right to do that."

Then I thought of another thing I could have asked instead: "Are you a veteran?" Because that adds a layer I don't pretend to understand.