Dirt shirts

If possible, it seems better to return to the location of an earlier adventure because you do pick some new things each time. Last time I was in Hawaii, I bought a dirt shirt. I learned that the color came from the red dirt that is everywhere here. I did share this knowledge with others and explained that it was a clever way to add color to plain white Ts in an environmentally friendly way.

This time I learned a little more and purchased a couple more shirts. I heard the dirt shirt story using the app Shaka Guide. I wanted to check out the story, but found no Wikipedia entry. Who knew Wikipedia did not contain all knowledge. I did verify the story elsewhere

The story goes that there was a category 4 hurricane that struck the Hawaiian islands in the early 1990s - hurricane Iniki. I really do not remember this hurricane or the damage that it did. Evidently, a t-shirt shop was pretty much wiped out by water damage, but the owner salvaged the soiled shirts and sold them as dirt shirts. Like the chicken, the dirt shirt became a staple of Hawaiian culture.