Man stumbles upon brother's 30-year-old letterman jacket in thrift store
Jed Mottley will be keeping warm this winter in a jacket he never thought he'd get to wear.
Jed graduated from Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1994. He was a member of the football team, and wanting to display his varsity letter, Jed ordered a letterman jacket. It cost around $400, but when his mom said the family wasn't able to afford it, he never picked the jacket up.
Recently, while perusing the racks at the Veterans Village thrift shop in Pinetop, Arizona, Jed's brother Josh came across a jacket with a familiar name on it. He took a photo and texted it to Jed, who "couldn't believe" he was looking at the jacket he ordered so long ago.
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Josh called his brother, and because he was on speaker, other shoppers could hear the excitement in his voice. Some came up to ask Josh what was going on, and when they found out he'd discovered his brother's long lost letterman jacket, "they were freaking out," Josh told AZFamily. He bought the jacket for $25, and delivered it to Jed.
The jacket fits perfectly, Jed said, and he's grateful for it being in excellent condition. "If I had this the whole time, it would probably be all beat up and sit in the back of my closet," he told AZFamily. "Now I'm going to wear this thing with pride."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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