A jacket purchased in 1922, when Golden Bear operated out of small factory on Howard Street, wouldn’t have looked so different from one made in 1944, roaring high up above Europe in the cockpits of Flying Tigers, the Hellcats, and Flying Fortresses. And the pilots that came home, swapping P-51 Mustangs for 62 foot-pounds of torque on two wheels, would notice, ten and twenty years down the line, that the kids hanging around North Beach and the Haight had jackets that looked pretty familiar. Thing was, no one seemed to get rid of those jackets. They got better with age. Each crease told a story, every rough patch a memory. The people who wore them put in so much mileage, so much time of their own, that parting with a coat would have seemed like loosing a friend, getting fired, leaving town.

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