First, about the title. I'm not Carl Anderson, and I'm not sure a real Carl Anderson ever existed.
Carl Anderson's Lockerroom was a sporting goods store in suburban Washington, DC (Alexandria, Va. more specifically) where I grew up. They were the only store around that sold sports jerseys. This was in the days before replica jerseys were available at every big box retailer and department store.
So here was the pattern: I would beg my mom to take me there, she'd become apoplectic upon seeing how much money they were asking, and then - true to the Eddie Murphy "Houseburger" standup routine - assure me that she could make just as nice a jersey with a polyester tank-top from K-Mart and an iron-on number set.
Carl Anderson's grew to symbolize the barrier between me - a budding sports jersey junkie - and the tight, uncomfortable brightly-colored uniforms my athletic heroes wore.
Later in life, and interesting thing happened. The throwback jersey craze dashed through like a three-year flash fire, taking me from clairvoyant trailblazer (since I obsessed over this stuff long before it was trendy) to inappropriately juvenile trend-follower (since I obsess over this stuff long after it was trendy).
Funny how even when you don't change, you change.
So, what am I doing here? Can't answer that completely just yet, on account of I'm still figuring that out. So I guess I'll ruminate about those things that continue to interest me, post a pic or two, and we'll see what happens.
FYI, I'm the one in the back in the picture (behind big brother) that's a picture of me when I was younger. Reminds me of Mitch Hedberg's classic: "Every picture of you... is a picture of you when you were younger."
And if you're actually reading this, one question...
How in the hell did you find this place?
5 comments:
idk how a got here lol... it started with me wanting to kno more about the mercury mets
I actually got here through the Uni Watch site. You must do some great work to get Paul Lukas to endorse your site on his page.
i was looking up federer's wimbledon shoes. i was in yahoo images and the link was thru your page. normally i click the back button and that's that, but your page interested me. the 1st thing i noticed was the logo (it's cute!). i'm not athletic at all, but i've always LOVED the style and the look of sports attire (esp throwback). the colors, the simplicity; etc.. i saved it to my favorites and i would love to customize something one day!
stumbled across this lookin to customize a throwback. Great site and blog. look foward to getting some jerseys hopefully
Carl Anderson was my best friend and Brother in law. His legal name was Charles Anderson but everyone knew him as Carl. Often he got mistaken for the famous guy John Madden because he looked so much like him.
Carl had two stores, one in Arlington and a bigger store in Alexandria. Carl tried to give back to the community by donating uniforms and equipment mostly by schools and needy teams for children that could not afford them. Unfortunately there was a big rain storm that caused the roof to collapse at his bigger Alexandria store and destroyed nearly a million dollars worth of merchandise. Carl was trying to save money and opted not to get insurance.
Since he didn’t have insurance, this was a chain reaction to the business demise. I don’t know what the exact terms of his leasing contract of his Alexandria store was, but he was responsible to fix or replace the damaged roof which he had done.
Some how financially after that happened the store could not recover the loses. I used to go to his Arlington store every year on my birthday to buy expensive shoes and other sports clothes. I’m assuming his son that made the last comment known as Chuckie was the one to claim to be his Son. I hope your doing well Chuckie.
To answer your question, Carl Anderson really did exist. He past away on July 4th years ago, the day I was going to visit him.
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