Coat of Many Colors

I am a huge country music fan and when I was growing up one of my favorite singers was Dolly Parton. I loved the songs, they were filled with spirit, love and humor. One of my favorite songs was Coat of Many Colors. I loved the song as much as the story of Joseph and his coat. I always wanted a coat of many colors but my mom wasn’t sewing or knitting as much back then. I still haven’t seen the movie recently showed on television about Dolly’s coat but I will when I get a chance.

In the song someone gives the family some scraps of cloth and her mother sews them together to make a coat since winter is coming quickly. When she goes to school she is picked on for being poor. She doesn’t understand why they are doing this because to her the coat was handmade for her with the love of her mother she felt that coat made her rich. She remembers trying to explain to them and telling them the story of Joseph from the Bible’s coat. She saw that poverty was not in wealth and ownership but in love.

In school I remembered over hearing someone I thought was a friend telling someone “she uses those folders because she is poor.” At the time I was using the yellow manila folders for a filing cabinet. I remembered as the year came up deciding I wasn’t going to buy new folders for school so I dug through the house finding folders instead.  I was in 8^th grade and was so proud when I found these folders to use, they had little tabs on them so that I could write the name of the class on them and didn’t have to go out and buy new ones. That day I dropped the envelopes and my papers went all over the floor. I gathered them up when I overheard those words. I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t feel poor, I felt smart I had found them and didn’t need to buy new ones. I was going to Florida in February. We were going to Canada in the fall. Canoe season was coming up and I was excited. Those girls didn’t know me and didn’t understand that I picked those envelopes out because I wanted to. Plus they were smooth on the top so I could doodle on them without having to deal with the bumpy feeling folders that were popular at the time.

In the song Dolly says “one is only poor, only if they choose to be.” It isn’t about the cost of something always but the meaning of something. At the time of Middle School I was starting to understand the value of money.  I remember a few times that year when people commented on my economic standing but I just smiled because they didn’t really know. They didn’t know my dad fixed his own cars not because he had to but because he liked to and to save money so we could go to Florida and Canada. My mom didn’t keep a garden, and today neither do I because we have to but because we want to. It saves us a little money but also and more importantly the food is better. I have never felt poor, broke yes but poor, no because I have my family, a home, clothing on my back and I am proud to say most of them I made. Now my “coat of many colors” is a plaid cloak I made and it is my favorite .

My cloak of many colors. Find others like it at my Etsy Shop , etsy.com/shop/GrandmasTools