The color photos at top are of John Dodds and a vintage World War II bomber jacket that he recently purchased for $17 at a Goodwill store in Washington, DC. The black-and-white photo is of Robert Arand, the man to whom the jacket originally belonged back in the 1940s.

Dodds, a military veteran himself, was able to track down Arand, who's now 90 years old and will soon be reunited with his jacket. You can get the full story in this Stars and Stripes article.

We've had quite a few of these stories about lost military jackets being found and returned to their original owners. Part of it, I'm sure, is that military apparel is reasonably easy to track, at least compared to other vintage clothing. And part of it is no doubt that military garments resonate with strong backstories that seem to compel us to find the item's original owner. In any case, I'll keep featuring these stories as long as they keep coming up.

I wear a lot of vintage clothing, and I'm always wondering about the people who owned the clothing before I did. Who were they? What were they doing and experiencing when they wore this sweater (or shirt, or pair of jeans, or whatever)? If the clothing could talk, what stories would it tell? Occasionally I'm able to find out the answers to those questions, as in the case of that vintage skating jacket that I was recently able to trace back to its original owner, but that's pretty rare. Most of the time I'm just left to wonder.

The folks at Racked -- a shopping web site that I just became aware of, although I gather it's fairly popular -- apparently wonder the same thing, and they've taken a novel approach toward addressing it. They recently hired a psychic and turned her loose in a Manhattan vintage store so she could tell the stories behind the clothing. The resulting video -- called, simply enough, "Vintage Store Psychic" -- can be seen above.

Frankly, it's a little disappointing. The psychic mainly comes across as a ditz, and the "revelations" she comes up with aren't particularly interesting or illuminating. But the basic concept of trying to find the stories behind old objects is a good one. And the concept isn't just limited to clothing, of course -- every old object has a history, a story to tell. That's the essence of Permanent Record.

Do you know the stories behind any of your second-hand objects? If so, post them in the comments, or feel free to e-mail them to me.

Earlier this month I wrote about story behind an old military jacket that had washed ashore after Hurricane Sandy, and how the person who found it was able to return it to the widow of the cadet who'd originally worn it at West Point in the early 1930s.

The jacket shown above is not that same jacket, but it's very similar. It was purchased 20 years ago at a consignment shop by a Minnesota woman named Mary Helen Taft. When she read a news article about the jacket that had washed ashore, she became curious about the one she had bought, which was stowed away in her closet. So she dug it out and then did what the person who'd found the other jacket had done: She contacted West Point and asked if officials there could use the marks on the jacket's tags to tell her more about its original owner.

In this case, the jacket had been worn by a cadet named Joseph Francis Albano, who graduated in 1971. (West Point cadet jacket design apparently didn't change much in the four decades.) He's still alive, although he and Mary Helen Taft hadn't yet spoken or met as of a few days ago.

Further details on all of this, along with a mention of yet another vintage West Point jacket being traced back to its original wearer, can be found here.

(Special thanks to Barbara Zimmer for pointing me toward this one.)

The two photos at the top of the page are West Point cadet Chester deGavre wearing his formal military jacket in his 1933 West Point yearbook photo, and that same jacket as it appears today. The lower photo shows the jacket being presented last week to deGavre's 98-year-old widow, Teresa deGavre, after the jacket had been found washed up on the Jersey Shore in the wake of hurricane Sandy.

The jacket was found by Donna Gugger (the blond woman in the lower photo), who discovered it while cleaning up debris near her home after the storm. She initially thought it was a costume jacket, but some of the interior tagging indicated that it was a genuine military jacket. With some research assistance from the folks at West Point, she was able to determine that it had been issued to Chester deGavre, who died in 1993. Some additional research led her to deGavre's widow.

That's some impressive sleuthing, although one serious mystery remains: Teresa deGavre had been completely unaware of the jacket's existence. It's not clear how it became separated from her husband, who may have owned it in the interim, or how it ended up in the ocean. In any case, it's now back where it belongs.

You can read more about this here and here, and there's a video report here:

Cadet jacket found in Sandy aftermath

(Special thanks to Sue Kendall for bringing this story to my attention.)

Who's the guy with the mustache? His name was Dominic Vadini, and he was the owner of the varsity-style speedskating jacket that I recently wrote about. The photos were provided to me by Dominic's son, Steve Vadini, who I was able to track down thanks to some sensational research by Permanent Record reader Barbara Zimmer.

As you can see, the jacket Dominic was wearing in the top two photos isn't quite the same as the one I ended up buying on eBay, but it's similar -- same color scheme, similar chest patch. Apparently he had a lot of these jackets. (But he sure liked that one hat!)

As you can also see, Dominic was a middle-aged man when these photos were taken. That's one of the surprises that have emerged from this story -- I had assumed that the jacket had belonged to a high school or college student. The trajectory of Dominic's athletic career turns out to have been much more unusual than that of the typical student athlete. I'll have more to say about all of this soon, hopefully in the form of a big feature-length article (maybe with accompanying video). Stay tuned.

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Slate update: The next full-length PermaRec article on Slate, which I had expected to run this week, has been delayed due to logistical logjams on Slate's part (grrrr). Should run next week.

When I'm not working on Permanent Record, I spend a lot of my time writing about sports uniforms, logos, and athletic gear (yes, it's a very geeky niche). Occasionally those two worlds intersect, as they did back in March when I wrote about an old, unusually evocative baseball jersey. Now it's happened again.

The photos you see above are of a varsity-style jacket that I purchased on eBay a few years ago. It was apparently worn by a speedskater in Parma, Ohio, which is a suburb of Cleveland. Back in 2010, I posted those photos, along with close-ups of the patches and inner label and a description of the jacket, on another blog that I maintain.

That prompted a note that I recently received from Eric Adler -- great-grandson of Rube Adler, the name of the sporting goods shop on the back on the back of the jacket and on the label. The Here's what Eric had to say:

I just stumbled across the post in which you featured a varsity jacket from my family's store. Rube was my great-grandfather so that makes me fourth generation. After Rube retired, my grandfather took over the business. Now my grandfather is retired (although he still hangs out at the store and helps us out) and my father, another manager, and I run the place.

Please let me know if you would like more info about the jacket. I will ask my father and grandfather if they remember it.

Pretty cool, right? I'd love to know who owned the jacket before I did. If you look again at the label, it appears that the skater (or maybe the skater's mother..?) stitched the name Adini -- perhaps with an additional letter at the beginning that has since unraveled -- into the label:

I told Eric that I'd love to hear more about the jacket and/or the skater. No further updates yet, but this has already been a fun, interesting interaction. Just goes to show that anything can qualify as Permanent Record fodder, as long as it has a story behind it.

Update: Thanks to some sensational research by PermaRec reader Barbara Zimmer, I was able to contact the family of the skater who wore the jacket. The skater, unfortunately, is now deceased but I had a lengthy conversation with his son, who was very excited to hear about the jacket (and who clearly loves talking about his dad). Interestingly, the son has no idea how the jacket ended up on eBay, although he's asking some other family members about it. I'll definitely be writing more about all of this -- stay tuned.

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Slate update: I'm about to deliver the next feature-length Permanent Record article to my editor at Slate. It should run either this week or next. This will be the last PermaRec article to appear on Slate for the foreseeable future. If my research (read: Cate's and Samantha's research) turns up a particularly powerful story lurking in one of the report cards, Slate will be happy to let me write about it, but they no longer want to commit to an article every month, or every month-and-a-half, or whatever.

I can live with that, at least for now. Meanwhile, the project will remain active here on the blog as long as there are interesting things to write about (i.e., forever).

Click photos to enlarge

At its heart, Permanent Record is about found objects with stories to tell. Although the project has focused on old report cards and other printed ephemera, the same sort of sleuthing and storytelling can be done with other types of objects.

Case in point: I collect vintage sports uniforms, many of which I find on eBay. My most recent acquisition is the one you see above, a gorgeous baseball jersey from a team sponsored by -- or perhaps comprised of employees from -- a business called Lamanna Florist. Judging by the style and material, I'd say it's from the 1950s or early ’60s.

There's no indication of where Lamanna Florist was located, although the jersey itself was made by a Brooklyn company, which means Lamanna was probably situated in the Northeast. (A team in, say, Chicago, would likely have ended up with uniforms from a Midwestern supplier, because that's who the team's local sporting goods shop probably ordered from.) Some quick internet research revealed the following:

• There was a John Lamanna Florist in Syracuse. That's close enough to Brooklyn -- I'd be willing to bet that that's the shop connected to the jersey.

• The address listed on that postcard -- 101 South Warren Street -- is now a medical office, and I can't find any other address listing for the florist, so it's apparently no longer in business.

• The owner of that shop, John Lamanna, endorsed Penzoil Motor Oil in a 1961 ad (use the zoom function to get a better look).

• Here's a 2008 article a Syracuse resident named John Lamanna. This is not the Penzoil fan -- the article mentions "his father, Joseph Lamanna ... who used to own John Lamanna and Sons Florist." So this John is probably the nephew or grandson of the shop's eponymous founder.

I'd like to know more about the Lamanna Florist baseball team, and I figure John Lamanna might get a kick out of seeing photos of the jersey, so I came up with what I think is the right phone number for him and gave a call. Got his voicemail, left a message. No response yet, but I'm hoping.

The Lamanna jersey isn't the only interesting uniform find I've recently come across. Last week I acquired this softball jersey (click for larger images):

Lots of history in this one. Local 507 was formed in Cleveland in 1966 and helped launch Jackie Presser on the path that would eventually lead him to the Teamsters presidency (and also to a heavy involvement with organized crime, a role as an FBI informant, a Federal indictment, etc.). The jersey lists Presser’s title as Secretary-Treasurer, indicating that it’s from the late 1970s.

I'm a small-ish guy (5'8", 150 lbs.), yet this jersey fits me perfectly, which means it must have belonged to one of the smallest Teamsters in organized labor history.

Click to enlarge

On the left is Rose Baggini, age 15, as shown on her Manhattan Trade School report card in 1932; on the right, Rose Baggini Vrana, age 95, in her Florida home on March 3, 2012.

Rose is the first -- and so far only -- living connection to Permanent Record. I interviewed her by phone a few weeks ago but didn't know what she looked like because she doesn’t own a camera or a computer. Fortunately, I was able to arrange for one of Rose's friends, Linda Cadovius, to take a photo of her and e-mail it to me. Linda, whose parents were close with Rose, lives nearby and looks in on her from time to time. Big thanks to her for serving as Permanent Record's first remote photographer.

My article about Rose will be appearing on Slate shortly -- stay tuned.

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Update: Remember all that stuff that I found in the pocket of an old jacket? I contacted the vintage shop where I bought the jacket and told them the whole story. "We receive a lot of merchandise, so we usually just pat down the items instead of checking each pocket," the owner told me. "I'm sure we've sold back hundreds of stray dollars and coins over the years." So much for my theory that they put random ephemera in random pockets, just for fun.

Meanwhile, my thanks to everyone who weighed in on the question of whether I should contact Ann Marie Kroznuski (the widow of the man whose stuff was in the pocket). For the record, my whole "Should I get in touch with her?" thing was meant to be rhetorical -- I don't plan to contact her.

Why not? Mainly because I think doing so would be selfish. When I track down a report card family, I gain information from them but I also provide lots of information for them regarding their ancestors, so it feels like a fair exchange. That's one of my favorite things about Permanent Record -- I'm giving as well as taking. But if I were to contact Ann Marie Kroznuski, it would probably be interesting for me (I'd get to ask her questions about the jacket, about her late husband, etc.), but what would she get out of it? A reminder of a check that she bounced years ago? Feels like a pretty one-sided interaction, which wouldn't be fair to her. So I don't think I'll be going there.

Click on photos for larger versions

On Tuesday I bought a new pair of gloves. When I got them home, I decided I didn't like the color, so the next day I brought them back and exchanged them for a different pair. On my way back from the glove exchange, I decided on a whim to stop at a vintage shop in my neighborhood, where I came across this old jacket. I liked the cut and the fit, but I don't usually wear pale colors, so I wasn't sure about it. As I was trying it on, I felt something in one of the front pockets, so I reached in and pulled out a small wad of papers, all folded up. I didn't unfold them, but I could see that several of them had handwritten notes and appeared to be yellowed with age.

That was enough for me. I put everything back in the pocket and bought the jacket.

When I got home, I examined this new stash of ephemera, beginning with the check that's shown at the top of this entry. As you can see, it was written to pay a phone bill, but it bounced. It's not a report card, obviously, but it nonetheless feels very Permanent Record -- an old document of someone's personal details. How does this stuff keep finding me?

Naturally, I began searching for Ronald and Ann Marie Kroznuski. It turns out Ronald passed away just a few months ago in South Carolina, but Ann Marie is still alive. It feels odd to know that she bounced a check 36 years ago -- a small record of shame to which I'm privy (and now you are, too).

So what else was in the jacket pocket? For starters, a time card from Ronald's job:

No indication of what the job was, which is semi-maddening. Would it have killed Ronald's company to put its name on the time card?

There were also two short grocery shopping lists. One of them was on the back of a small (2.5" square) Woolco sales slip:

The other shopping list was on written on the flap of an envelope (hey, just like the Gettysburg Address, right?):

Next up, a receipt for a gallon of paint at Sherwin-Williams -- "Tivoli Green Accent 4492":

That paint color corresponds to one of the hues on this swatch strip, which has some basic arithmetic on the back:

Green, incidentally, has been my favorite color ever since I was a little boy -- another sign, if you choose to believe in such things, that this stuff was meant for me.

One final item -- a pocket calculator user's manual:

Hmmm -- if the Kroznuskis had a calculator, why did they have to do math on the back of the swatch strip? Maybe the latter inspired the purchase of the former.

That's it.

Did the jacket once belong to the Kroznuskis? If so, had these cards and papers been sitting in the pocket for 36 years until I found them a few days ago? And what about the staff of the shop where I bought the jacket -- don't they go through the pockets of a garment before putting it out on the racks? Maybe they found this stuff in the pocket but decided to leave it there, thinking it might make a nice bonus prize for the jacket's new owner? Or maybe they randomly seed their vintage clothing with assorted detritus, just because it's fun?

Meanwhile, should I contact Ann Marie Kroznuski? Should I just pack all of this stuff into an envelope and send it to her, with a note explaining how I found it? Should I send the material back anonymously, with no note? Or should I just leave her alone and enjoy these latest artifacts to find their way into my orbit?

Finally, consider this: What if I had bought the right color of gloves from the start?