#greatones

[zou-pa]

[fictionpsychologist]

This week, I delved into Bloodborne and its significance as a mystical experience.

[aworryingdarkness-blog]

The Pit Log.

| The Pit Village | The Pit Folk | The Pit Log | The Pit Lamp | The Pit | Dust

It was the librarian who halted me in my exploratory tracks. An elderly gentleman yet of indeterminate age, he held an air of casual antiquarianism which seemed exaggerated to the point of caricature. With a baggy open necked shirt, trousers and cardigan in morphing shades of brown and beige that matched his liver-spotted complexion, the man was the very image of patient, age-earned knowledge. As he shuffled across the threadbare carpet of the reading room toward me, I felt an instant aura of attentive comfort, despite the intensity of his gaze. The man's eyes shone brightly between half-moon spectacles and thinning hair as he mentally summarised the handful of books before me; although this enthusiasm could well have been as much in surprise at anyone taking an interest in the contents of his worn but immaculately maintained shelves, in an area of the facility which I suspected saw little footfall. "Well then" he croaked, the brittle words tentatively rippling the air as if they were the first to have been spoken in the room. "Are you back for long?" This efficiently derailed my concentration. His tone was friendly and familiar, and clearly the man believed we had been previously acquainted. Although I also somehow received the impression that this had never been closely so. "Oh no, I er..." I stammered, "I'm visiting. It's my first time here", I asserted. "Lovely village, I thought I'd try and find out a little more about it?" The librarian's eyes narrowed as he studied my features more closely. "Are you Jack's boy? Ash Street?" "Ah no, I'm afraid I don't know a Jack, I'm visiting from--" "You're an Armstrong though? You've got the look..." He did not seem to intend this as an insult. My initial uneasiness at holding a conversation in a library was quickly replaced with a frustration that it was, in fact, barely a conversation. "I'm not, no. I don't know... Jack?", I added, uselessly. "I'm new here. On business, I mean. Just passing through." "Oh, right you are" he replied, with what was by now irritating friendliness. "You look like an Armstrong." "Well I'm--" I upbraided myself. No sense in bickering with a stranger, I thought, even less in garnering enemies in a town so shortly after arriving. The old man was only making conversation and was certainly more amiable than some of the denizens I'd met already. No doubt as custodian of this place his mind was a beacon of order, whilst being somehwat mired in events past. I decided to press my advantage using all of these points. "I'm at something of a loose end this morning and thought I'd read up on the local history. Am I in the right direction with these?" I nodded to the books I'd retrieved so far, three of them already open. "Or perhaps you'd like tell me about it? If you're not too busy?" "Yes, yes, I daresay..." he muttered, affably, "...you've got Teery's Notes On Langdon Dene, and The Pony Boys, good. That one on Mining in Dunham County will be no good for you, we're not in it. Keep it here mostly to illustrate the point. Of course a lot of what we had was hand-written, loose, no real interest in printing that up..." He half-chuckled with that last. "Really? I'd have thought that would form part of the--" "Well more than half of it went in the fire, of course" he interrupted. "A shame, but... that knowledge isn't lost, it's just not written down at the moment. Give it time, you know?" To my shame, I could feel my interest waning already. The problem was not that the librarian was coyly withholding information, rather that he still seem to assume some background knowledge on my part; the kind of cultural history which is usually absorbed by osmosis when growing up in one's home town. The fact that this was not my home seemed not to have fully registered with him. "We still have The Pit Log, though. Not out here, but I can get it for you, if you like?" Before I could answer, the librarian was shuffling off toward a plain brown panel of a door, behind where he had originally came from. Once behind it, the muffled sound of boxes being dragged - over shelves, I supposed - crept around the aperture where he had left it ajar. This suddenly seemed to me like a lot of effort to go to on his part, being so frail, but the old man returned after a couple of minutes. Quietly closing the door behind him, he huffed and puffed back toward me with a large tome under his arm - bound in a soft hide, age-dark and closed with a string hasp to contain what appeared to be a swathe of loose sheets. "Now, Armstrong... Armstrong..." he muttered, some mental configuration of his taking place presumably before beginning a physical search of these new pages. I attempted again to correct him, perhaps intercepting his line of thought and saving us both some time. "My name is Banner, by the way. I'm not from this village. I was born in Sussex and lived there with my parents until I was aged six. Then we moved to Carlisle, for my father's job. That's where I've been ever since, I only arrived here for the first time yesterday." Undeterred, my attendant spoke more to himself than I. "Sussex? Hmmm. Could be, I suppose." In the meanwhile he had closed and cleared my current selection of books to one side, then placed this new volume directly in front of me. The string had been unwound and cover opened before I had been able to decipher its debossed letting properly, but I had made out the legend "PIT LOG" in its centre, larger than the rest of the description. Although far from being an administrative list of colliery records, this did indeed seem to be the real history of Langdon Dene. A veritable scrapbook of sketches, plans, forms, ledgers and photograps chartering the beginnings of the village from an untouched, verdant, sheltered cauldron of land, to the zenith of its success as a small mining community. Building a firm mental picture of all this was difficult since even the pages which were attached to the spine seemed to be in no discernible order of date or aspect; as if the log had been collated from another - partially destroyed? - source, by one who either had no interest or understanding of their task. Once the loose leaves were taken into consideration, well this would make even the most dedicated historian uncomfortable. And I was barely an amateur. The librarian chattered his way through the records, around half the words being lost on me for want of context or familiarity. Again, his was the style of someone providing a reminder rather than issuing information for the first time. But as he progressed, one thing became clear, the 'look' of Langdon Dene - that sallow, darkened physiognomy with vaguely haunted eyes, which I had witnessed myself in some locals and even heard whispers of despite only being here for less than two days - was most certainly of historical provenance. And, again to my shame, I could not help but wonder if its prevalence now when coal mining had long since ceased was due to some manner of in-breeding. Naturally I vowed to voice no such query aloud, certainly not during my stay here, and attempted to concentrate on the pseudo-enigmatic rattle still coming from the librarian. Although in-depth, none of the information in this log seemed to be at all recent, but then this is precisely what I had been seeking, so I endeavoured to bring myself back on-track. I was drawn from my reverie when, around three quarters of his way through the book, my guide's finger stabbed down triumphantly on an image with an accompanying verbal celebration, the most spritely and animated I'd seen him thus far. "There... Armstrong!" And everything stopped. There... on the brittle, yellowed page which sat beneath his hand... an impossible snapshot out of time, purportedly over a century old in this printed form alone... there, in a commemorative photograph of the newly built chapel of Langdon Dene, the pit-wheel looming in the distance beneath undulating clouds... there, the small throng of townsfolk who had begun hewing this new life for themselves, standing before it... there, looking proudly, wearily and stoically into the new camera apparatus... and exactly as I remembered them from less than fifteen years ago... there stood my parents.

[aworryingdarkness-blog]

Hunters.

"Your guns won't kill it! They won't even slow it down..." The old man's admonition was barely audible over the jeep’s rumbling engine and scattering scree beneath its wheels. His wrists were starting to bleed in his lap as he squirmed against the improvised handcuffs fashioned from fence-wire. He made no eye contact with the search party as he muttered, but the pair sat closest knew the invective was aimed at them. "Think you've said enough for one day, old man." Billy glared at him, weighing the shotgun in his grip. Turning toward the driver without taking his eyes off their charge, he added "Any sign yet, Charlie?". "No, just followin' the trail still" came the voice from the front. While the amorphous creature may have been difficult to spot travelling at this speed, its linear path of destruction was anything but. A line of disease, disintegration and destruction cut through the scrubland. This was at least the easiest part of their task. The charred remains of another house passed by. The old Jones' place. No signs of life. What was left of the wooden panelling looked bubbled and rotten through, as if the building had been exposed to thousands of years of wear in an instant. The dwelling seemed to be frozen in one last cry as the remains of its supporting structure reached feebly for the clouds. The entirety of its contents - and inhabitants - were gone, either consumed or reduced to their constituent dust. The result was the same either way. “There’s still time to tell us why you did it”, offered Zachary, the calmest and the oldest of the group, even being at least thirty years younger than the one they were failing to interrogate. Lines of consternation furrowed into Zachary’s face, but he spoke to the old man without reprisal or accusation. “Did it?”, he responded incredulously, “You think this was my doin’? It was comin’ anyway, I just held the gate open! It would have found a way in, it’s not just me workin’ for the cause! You boys have got no idea what you’re dealin’ with…” “Then why don’t you tell us?”. Billy leaned forward across the divide, raising his weapon slightly but not pointing it directly at the old man just yet. Even in this excitement, Billy knew that a bump or dip in the trail resulting in an accidental discharge could be disastrous if their captive were to be on its receiving end. Captive. That in itself was a joke. The old timer’s eyes narrowed. “It’s here to clear a way for the others. The Old Ones. Soon be their time! You’ll see!” From the back of the truck, Wyatt joined in. “Why’d you call it up?”. A question so basic this late in the day was met with a snort of derision. “I didn’t ‘call it up’, it was here all along! In the space between the spaces! I just opened the gate!” Billy looked to Zachary. “Okay, can I shoot him?” “Not yet, he might still be useful.” The old man was becoming distracted and agitated now, his watery eyes seeming to focus on other places as he remonstrated with the hunters. “You won’t stop it! You can’t!!” “That doesn’t sound useful. Let me know when you want me to shoot him”. Wyatt again. “Maybe we can’t stop it, but maybe this can.” He held up a large book with both hands. Scabrous and ancient looking, a dark leathery binding etched and embossed with barely legible symbols struggled to contain thick, age-yellowed pages that seemed to hang at angles from its fragile grasp, bulging as if to suggest illicit additions secreted between. The old man’s mood changed in an instant and he blanched as recognition of the tome registered on his face, the illusion of smug superiority shattered. “You don’t know how to use that book!” he blustered a little too quickly. “Well then I guess you and your plan have got nothing to worry about! Let’s see…” Wyatt opened the volume casually at its middle, leafed through a few brittle pages and began to read aloud with an air of bemused interest. “Umph n'geena, brahuna hai...” “No! STOP!” hollered the prisoner, unabashedly panicked now. “…stoonto een ah g'tollah, g’facht ah n’geenah?” he continued quizzically, as if seeking confirmation from his companions. It came instead from the front-corner of the back of the jeep as the old man launched himself head-first past his closest captors and toward the reader of the words, an incoherent shriek of denial the only preemptive tell of the burst of energy. Billy was quick enough to assist this velocity by ramming the butt of his shotgun square into the centre of the old man’s spine. Hands still bound, the howl ended as his face made first contact with the wooden floorboards. After he was hauled efficiently back into his seat with neither grace nor compassion, Billy held the quarry in place with the business-end of the shotgun pressed into his chest, as Zachary fashioned a gag from a length of strapping hanging behind the driver’s seat. “Well,” mused Wyatt, “it looks like that’s the passage, alright. And I’d say that’s all the help we’re going to get out of the old fool. We should lose him. He’ll be so desperate to stop us now, we won’t be able to trust a word that comes out of his mouth.” “True,” agreed Zachary, “but we can sure use his reactions as a guide to how well we’re doing…” The jeep began to slow down, noticeably. “Guys?” came Charlie’s voice from the front. “Guys, I think we’ve found it…”. The jeep stopped. Around three hundred yards in front of them, a huge translucent, colour-shifting… thing - defying mundane description of shape - shuddered, pulsed and tensed for what came next, somehow seeming to stare from a thousand non-existent eyes, as the trickling sound of urine hitting the jeep’s floor came from the old man. “Game time…” whispered Wyatt.

[aworryingdarkness-blog]

The Pit Folk.

| The Pit Village | The Pit Folk | The Pit Log | The Pit Lamp | The Pit | Dust

The frontal signage proclaimed this to be 'The Langdon Dene Hotel', yet it was known colloquially only as The Black Star, in reference to a local brewery which managed the business some years ago. Although they had since departed, the name remained. The swinging, featureless black pentagonal signboard certainly painted a striking picture to me as a visitor, the obvious first port of call in facilitating my staying in the village. The saloon interior was well illuminated, given that the low-wattage bulbs were already struggling to compensate for what little daylight filtered in through small, grimy windows. Its furniture and fixings were of well-worn wood and brass, yet a look which would be homely in any other establishment was undone by the cobbled-together nature of mismatched styles; as if this creaking tavern had been slowly assembled piecemeal, from the skeletons of others less fortunate. And yet in all the visual cacophony, my eye was drawn once more to the star motifs dotted irregularly around the room. Carved into the backrest of an unoccupied chair, adorning a beer pump handle and on the shirts of a local sports team in a framed newspaper clipping. Each star a solid, austere black. By now, I was staring. Heads may not have turned as I stepped through the 'public bar' entrance of the building, but I was left in no doubt that my arrival had been noted. It felt busy for an hour this early, especially on a weekday. The patrons were almost exclusively male, in groups of two or three and almost entirely middle-aged or above. If my arrival had singled me out as potentially unusual, my accent would doubtlessly do the rest. Although I wanted to keep a clear head to attend to what business I could before the end of this first day, it was achingly clear that this was not an establishment where one orders soft drinks, especially as a stranger. And as my ultimate intention was to ask for lodging here, I felt it best to get the staff 'on side' from the beginning (although God knows why; I was here as a customer). Scanning the row of beer pumps for any names or branding I recognised proved fruitless, so I assumed that these were all local brews and therefore all 'safe' to be asked for without the raising of eyebrows from the settled clientele. Thankfully, one such entry allowed me to point casually and ask for “a pint of best”, in the hopes of being taken as some kind of old salt. My host was not fooled for an instant. Deftly walking that tightrope of the retail and service industries by simultaneously being faultlessly polite and needlessly aggressive, the woman behind the bar took my order, poured my drink, took my money then seemed to stare with absolute affront when I asked if any rooms were available. "Roooms? Foh staayin' in?" she retorted, as if this were some new concept, rather than a service stated in ten-inch letting on the outside of the building in which we both stood. I admit that I hadn't noted the name of the publican above the door when I entered, but there was no doubt who was in charge under this roof. Nonetheless, within minutes I had secured lodging upstairs on a rolling basis (as I wasn't sure how long my business was likely to keep me here), with each night to be paid for in advance. This conclusion would have been more satisfying if the entire bar had not been privy to every word of our exchange, my host projecting her half as if it were closing time on a Saturday night. No matter. I took the pint which I had begun drinking at the bar in the failed hopes of appearing casual, and seated myself by the outermost wall to unpack some of my paperwork. I didn't imagine I'd get much work done, but I'd hoped that by appearing busy I could potentially deter some chirpy local from approaching me. I don't enjoy small-talk at the best of times, and was already 'on the back foot'. The air hummed with several quiet conversations, underscored by music I couldn't identify playing from a source I couldn't see. Yet it was the one person in the room who hadn't uttered a word that fixed my attention. A widely grinning, bald, haggard yet fleshy gentleman - aged anywhere between fifty and seventy - sat with his back against the wall across the room with two younger men, perhaps in their mid forties. Both were equally unkempt but far more animated as they talked; not excluding their acquaintance, but not directly addressing him either. A baggy, tan overcoat buttoned up to the man's neck bore dark, sprawling stains that one would have been able to smell by sight alone, as he stared directly at me through thick spectacles. These looked like a fogged lens used to help correct vision in a weaker eye, yet his glasses held two of them. Even through these (and whilst trying desperately not to stare in turn) I became aware that the man was thoroughly unblinking, and the only time his smile vanished was when he gulped from what I can only assume was a glass of thick, black stout. With a slurp which managed to be louder than the surrounding hubbub, he drained the remains of his ale in a flamboyant manner, the dregs giving way to a creamy foam which served to backlight a solid black star printed on the bottom of the glass. I saw this for a timeless instant before the man thumped it to the table, raised an accusatory finger in my direction then bellowed "'Hoo ah YOU then, bonny lad?", smiling once more. Naturally everyone in the bar looked in my direction, not his, and as I felt my face grow instantly scarlet I knew I was about to be interrogated in the most friendly yet parochial of ways...

[aworryingdarkness-blog]

The Pit Village.

| The Pit Village | The Pit Folk | The Pit Log | The Pit Lamp | The Pit | Dust

Upon reflection, I have decided not to date the following diary entries. The village which they concern appears to have done its very utmost to conceal itself on a geographical level, I feel it only fair that I go some way to returning the favour on a chronological one. This happened within my lifetime, as you are reading it within yours. I fear that if I do not share the events in some form, what little that remains of my sanity might be at stake. I present these words not so much as a warning, more a record. They are the truth as I recall it, as objective as any personal account can be...

~ ~ ~

The north-lands of this country are peppered with pit villages. Small communities built up piecemeal around the old coal mines, a means by which the daily commute to an already arduous job could be all but eradicated, a way of conserving energy for the tasks at hand if nothing else. As I write, there are settlements which continue to flourish long after that industry has scaled its peak of both popularity and practicality. But some mines closed earlier than others, and some of the villages hardly thrived to begin with. I came across one such when scouting potential locations for my employer to erect warehousing units. This was purely by chance as I'd taken the wrong turning from the small B-road which passes it otherwise uneventfully. Without a signpost at the junction, and naturally assuming that this was the exit suggested by my map, a feeling of civilisation neared along the well-presented, if thoroughly unassuming, carriageway. I would learn later that this is what locals refer to as the 'new' road, even though they rarely make reference to an older one, hence it seeming more modern than the much of the rest of the village, built for function rather than form. But despite this assumed efficiency, the 'new' road bows widely to the right in its approach, as if to avoid something unspoken rather than provide any shortcut. Indeed, it is almost twice the length of its still-extant forebear, although this is something I would go on to measure for myself as the initial turn-off and all that follows do not appear on any map that I could later find. The 'old' road begins at another turning shortly after the main junction and is similarly unmarked. It is ramshackle yet still more than a dirt-track, trees and bushes all but disguising the entry into apparent darkness. It is this lane which passes closest to the colliery itself, the original route both of the men from the village who worked there, and of the black treasure unearthed by their endless toil. Seeming to silently fight its way through the overgrowth, the distinctive wheel of the pithead has not, I was told, turned for many years now, yet it sits in stark silhouette against troubled skies with no rust or decay to show for its decades as the sentinel of the mine. Abandoned but far from forgotten, with an air of patient if foreboding guardianship. The village itself bears a similar weight of expectancy; a melancholy of the best times being long past, while still awaiting permission to strive for more in the future. Slumped in a crooked valley of the high surrounding hills, this topography in olden days ensured that the pit-dust brought up on a daily basis hung in the air, mixing with the wood and coal fires to create an enveloping smog, desaturating the foliage of this natural cauldron to an unhealthy darkened sage colour. It has a similar effect on the lungs of course, its legacy on the workers combining with the danger of commercial burrowing to raise the local mortality rate well above any acceptable average. Here, the toll of the pit is higher still, but I shall come to that. With mining operations long since ended, there is no continuing trail of pollutants coming from that dreadful shaft. And yet the brickwork of the buildings throughout the valley still bears the stains of ingrained soot, and the miasma appears to continue as a psychological echo of the age, with the dulling of colour now applying itself to everyone's outlook. To say the village is run-down would not quite be true, more that the people seem content to live their lives in this place having little or no interest in importing ideas from outside, or creating new things to share with the world. While one would perhaps not expect art galleries in a hamlet so small, there is likewise no museum to honour its past, no hall to stage celebrations, no cinema or theatre left over or repurposed from a time when they were commonplace. Basic stores, two churches, three public houses and no bus routes. Life seems to grind on by a state of default acceptance, the long-closed pit a memory of the purpose the place once held. So far, this seems like a standard account of rural decay, of course. A picture postcard reproduced countless times across the length and breadth of the country, as new ways of living take hold and those who do not grasp them are doomed to failure and obsolescence. But my enquiries with what passed for officialdom in that village soon hinted at a far more insidious aspect of life there; a wordless acknowledgement that runs through those streets like an underground stream of resentment, malice and perverse servitude to things best left unknown. Not quite the ethos of the hunter, there is a venom which runs through the very blood here, content to bide its time and let prey stumble into its path. A conspiracy so embedded among the inhabitants that it never needs to be discussed nor ratified. While there was no sign to mark it, I had crossed the threshold. I had stepped closer to knowing the horror of The Pit Of Langdon Dene...

[aworryingdarkness-blog]

Clerk.

As the final, feeble rays of November daylight rasped their last against the window of my study, I resolved to close my ledger and take step of the surrounding town, for air which would at least be cooler, if not necessarily any more fresh. These are streets I feel I have always known, yet while I cannot remember the first time I walked them, I swear I only took residence here relatively recently. My regular route took me along lesser-used lanes and alleyways, and on the disused railway line under a rarely used footbridge, I came across what I came to term as The Old Man. Although I call him this, his actual age was indistinct. Lines did not mar his face, and yet such a toll of living had been collected as to evidently strip bare his very soul. The Old Man's attire, timeless yet undeniably old fashioned, was as worn as his aspect as he raised his head sharply, to make instant eye-contact. He asked if I was enjoying my day. Or my time. I am unsure which as, while his meaning was clear, I find it impossible to recall verbatim the words he used. His manner was direct, short of being abrupt, and with none of the aggression any bystander may have predicted. While I bumbled around a response which would pass as polite whilst hoping to avoid further conversation, my eye was nonetheless drawn to what appeared to be a medal of some sort, pinned to the heavy, flowing rag he had fashioned around himself against the seeping cold of the damp trackway, hanging perfectly straight on a threadbare ribbon of dark, stained red. This sigil showed a face, clearly a face, though of what species I could not say. Lacertian? Piscine? Satanic? Perhaps all or none of these? A cackling grimace, surrounded by hair, flame or even tentacles leered out at me, the dark recesses of its eye sockets seeming to yawn back as the evening now stretched away from me. Cast in yellow metal with a greenish tinge in the dim light, this could have been brass, bronze or even gold, the time-addled weathering of these filthy streets hiding its value in plain sight. Although the artefact's striking attraction to me was more than the financial potential of its material. I must confess to having lost track of the discourse I initially wanted no part of, for midway through his rambling reply the man stopped dead, slack mouth turning up in a wide, knowing grin. He asked if I liked what I saw, if I recognised it, noting that even though he had distracted my attention, still my gaze was fixed upon this terrible, leering trophy. Quite lost for words, I could barely draw my eyes back to him, only flapping like a landed fish whose terminal gasps are punctuated by the overwhelming knowledge that it had been hauled from the waves by King Neptune himself. But why again, that automatic aquatic association? The Old Man went on to tell me his last possession was token for his part in 'the battle of The Wall'. No such recent conflict leapt to my mind, although the name seemed draped in a faint familiarity, like the memory of a nightmare brought to the surface hours or even days after waking by some unconnected occurrence. He spoke vaguely of this confrontation as if it were some historical campaign, yet clearly with first-hand knowledge. Shapes, shadows and screams were conjured as he held my gaze, my own breath hanging on his every word. When struggling to decide whether I should document this interaction once I had returned to my chambers, it was at this point I realised The Old Man was not in fact speaking in my language, although nor could I specifically identify his tongue. Most odd. I understood the story perfectly, yet my mind also seemed to be performing some instantaneous subconscious translation upon it. His words seemed to flow through some manner of base human communication, almost as if buoyed by empathy or telepathy. And with this realisation his intent became clear. A flash-flood of memory ensued. The Wall; an attempt to turn an entire kingdom into a fortress; an ancient emperor bearing terrible power from The Old Ones; his crafting of an invincible legion; a siege, a slaughter, invaders driven back; armies rewarded; an amulet to remind them of their victory over a life beyond imagining; not quite immortality, but far, far more time than any man can know what do with, as long as at least a single brick of that Wall remains in place; freedom, hope, grief, confusion, boredom, despair, resolve, and now opportunity. Finally, opportunity. The wan smile of a man no longer speaking but preparing now to sleep, slumping contentedly back against the night's damp brickwork as if it were the long-missed embrace of a parent. And the residual feeling of hideous metal pressed, burning into my hand. Mine, now. Mine, always. And all the time that goes with it. All of my time. For I served at The Wall, too. Of course I did. The accountant. The clerk. The quartermaster. It is not that I could not remember, only that I had forgotten I forgot. In my chambers, I wrap the emblem in its ribbon and place it in the chest, under the boards. With the others. All will be accounted for. In the end.

[troycliffe17]

NBA Throwback Jerseys

There are so many teams that make up the NBA.  These teams can be recognized by either their top players, team colours, designs, logos or their  team name. Everybody that watches NBA basketball has a favorite team. Most avid basketball enthusiasts represent their team by wearing or displaying their team’s merchandise such as custom socks, hats, banners, key chains, balls, and player cards. However, there is one item that is the ultimate piece of team merchandise and representative of each NBA team, the coveted team jersey. There is so much thought and precision put into the professional team jersey, which is why they are so expensive. There are different variations of the team jersey depending on what type of game they are playing; whether they are at their home arena or away; whether they are playing a charity event or if they are mourning a player’s death. In my opinion, the best jerseys that come out only  once in a while, are the NBA’s most recognized memorabilia  - the “Throwback Jerseys”.

These jerseys are the retro ones that players and teams wore when they either first came into the league or when the team was young. There were lots of great players that wore these jerseys and then the team decided to change them to give themselves a new look. The original jerseys are really unique and for the older fans, these jerseys bring them back to when they were young. These jerseys are nostalgic and are never forgotten especially for the older fans. You can still find these jerseys if you wanted to buy one but they can be pretty expensive, especially if you want one with a specific player’s name and number on it. For example, say you wanted to buy a retro Toronto Raptors jersey and you just had to have one that said “Carter” with a #15 on the back. This would be more expensive then one that said “Stoudamire” and a #20. Nothing against Stoudamire, but Vince Carter is a well known Toronto Raptor from his time while Stoudamire is less of a trademark for the team.   

For some reason, I like the retro jerseys more then the current ones. They are working on a remodel which allows you to change the name and numbers of the jersey electronically. I thought this was a pretty cool idea. In my opinion, the best throwback jersey would have to be the “Vancouver Grizzlies”. I am from Vancouver, so my opinion might be a bit bias, but regardless, I have to state my opinion because I love the jersey so much. I like the shade of blue they used and the logo on the shorts was really aggressive. When you look at a huge grizzly bear growling on its hind legs, it can be pretty intimidating. If you come across this in the wild, you could very well be a good meal for that grizzly bear. It is kind of sad that they had to relocate the team to Memphis but they still use those Vancouver Grizzlies jerseys and I just can’t wait to watch when they do.