A Milwaukee-area middle school. Two boys playing around, nothing terrible, but things get a bit too rough. One of them tears the sleeve of the other one’s shirt. Not such a big deal – except the shirt belonged to the boy’s late father. It carried a lot of emotion for him.
The boy goes to pieces. He ends up in front of the principal.
The principal has an idea: Save the shirt. Convert it to short sleeves.
The principal goes to the school’s family and consumer education teacher (OK, they were called home economics teachers in my day). She’s only in the building part of the day, she doesn’t teach sewing, she doesn’t have the boy in class or even know him. But maybe she’ll do it.
She does it – that evening, on her own time, the way lots of teachers do out-of-the-way things for their kids, or even for kids they don’t directly teach.
The shirt is saved. The emotions are treated with dignity. By the next day, the boy again has this renewed memento of his father.