What is it, I asked, as I tore into the package.

Daddy always brought gifts back to us when he traveled. Usually he carried home a large chocolate bar for us to split, but occasionally he picked up separate gifts for each of us.

For me he invariably brought back some kind of animal—wood-carved lions from Kenya, a jade elephant from India, or an ivory horse from Hong Kong. Horses were always a safe bet. I was a bit of a horse fanatic.

Daddy had been spending time in Chicago.

He had a fellowship to conduct research at the Divinity School of Chicago University.

Years ago, when he had a Fulbright to study in India, the entire family went with him.

This time, only Luke and I were living at home, and Mother had just started her work at the John Umstead Hospital in Butner, following her graduation with a Masters degree in Social Work. I guess they decided to keep us at home in Raleigh. Instead, Daddy traveled back and forth from Chicago every few months.

It was on one of his brief return trips that he gave me the package.

I tore the paper apart and pulled out an article of clothing. Cotton with a vibrant print in red and green with suggestions of gold and black.

“It’s a dashiki,” he said.

“A what?”
“A dashiki. I thought you’d like it.”

I had never heard of a dashiki, but I had seen them around.

Richie Havens had worn a beautiful orange dashiki when he played at Woodstock. More and more counter-culture kids were donning African- and Indian-print garments.

The tunic was large on me.

It must have been meant for a man.

I took a silver chain belt from my mother’s jewelry box and tied it around my waist.

The dashiki became a dress.

I couldn’t wait to wear it to school.

I was fourteen.

I remember walking down the hall to homeroom. The Spanish teacher, Mrs. Scott, stood at the door, eyeing me critically as I brushed past her into the room.

She always eyed me critically. Either I was talking too much, I was walking too fast, or I was wearing a skirt that was too short.

I took my seat just before the bell sounded.

Mrs. Scott entered the room and began to take attendance. She continued to stare at me.

Was she admiring my sartorial choices?

I had paired the dashiki with soft suede moccasins, the kind that had fringe encircling the ankles.

“Becky Copeland,” she called me to the front and spoke to me in a low voice.
“What are you wearing?”

“This?” I asked, holding my arms out to the side to spread the fabric.

“It’s a dashiki!”

“A what?”

“Isn’t it so cool? My father bought this for me in Chicago.”

“Well it looks like a shirt! Don’t you have a pair of pants to wear with it?”

What was she saying. The dashiki may not have been a dress, but it fit me like one. Even with the metal belt, the hem landed just above my knee—modest by the mini-skirt standards of 1970.

“Why Mrs. Scott, it’s a shirtdress!” I teased.

“Not with those slits!” Mrs. Scott hissed.

True, there were slits on either side of the tunic, and I guess they did cut fairly high up on my thighs, but the fabric was so bulky, the slits were not very noticeable. You had to really scrutinize the dress even to see them.

No one but Mrs. Scott had been bothered by them. Not even my mother, and she was always giving me the once over before I left for school. Admittedly, my fashion sense did tend to be a little risqué at times.

“I can practically see your underpants,” she whispered. “You need to get yourself to the principal’s office right this minute.”

So off I went.

This was a first for me.

Glenda had been sent to the principal’s office last week for not wearing a bra.

She saw me on the way there and we both stepped into the bathroom. I slipped out of my bra and let her wear it. The principal was mystified by whatever Glenda’s infraction had been and let her go.

Glenda balled the bra up and gave it back to me in the cafeteria later that afternoon.

We were rebels.

And being sent to the principal’s became a badge of honor.

It also meant I didn’t have to sit through boring old homeroom with Mrs. Scott.

The principal had decided he had enough of dealing with girls’ underwear, so miscreants like myself were now directed to speak to a guidance counselor.

It just so happened, that the counselor on duty that day was a young African American woman.

“I love what you’re wearing!” she exclaimed as soon as she called me into her office.

“So, what brings you to see me this morning.”

“Well, this!” I said, stretching out my arms again to give her the full view of my garment.

Cinched at the waist, the tunic top bloused out over the belt, but you could still see the patch pockets on the front—on what was now my skirt.

“Mrs. Scott thought it was too short.”

“Too short?” the guidance counselor eyed my hemline.

“That’s not short!” she snorted.

“Mrs. Scott thought the slits were too revealing.”

“Oh, goodness you can hardly see them.”

She talked to me a little longer about my father and the time he was spending in Chicago away from home.

“You must miss him,” she said softly enough to bring tears to my eyes.

I did. I missed him terribly.

That dashiki was more than just an item of clothing.

I imagined him standing in the shop near his efficiency apartment on the southside of Chicago. Had he seen the dashiki in the window?

Had it spoken to him?

Did he see his little tangled-haired girl when he looked at the tunic with its muted greens and reds?

Did the ikat-printed cotton cambric fabric remind him of India? Did he see in it the little girl who studied Indian dance, stamping her red Alta-dyed feet loud enough to make her ankle-bells ring?

If he had known the trouble I would get in, I’m sure he would have reconsidered.

It was my proudest item of clothing at the time. I wore it everywhere, even to church.

I still have it.

Daddy bought me a poncho once when he traveled to Peru. Poncho’s were then the rage. It was a light brown with bright green yarn that rolled along the throat to form a collar. I wore it every winter.

When the poncho lost its appeal, I stored it in the cedar closet I had built in the basement of my St. Louis house. Sadly that forty-year-old garment did not survive the flood of July 2022.

Daddy also bought me a silk vest one year for Christmas. That sartorial choice was less successful. I wore it a few times, and now it hangs in my closet with nothing much to do but chat with the other out-of-style garments.

Like the dashiki, it served its time and now remains a testament to a father’s love.