The other day when Bill Marpet saw his son, Ali, he was taken aback when he noticed his boy dressed up in a black Polo shirt with a red emblem on the chest.
This was far nicer than Ali usually dressed; for most of his life, he had revelled in the art of the hand-me-down. Once, on a family vacation to Jamaica on New Year’s Eve, Ali donned his version of formal attire: a T-shirt that read AT THE CORNER OF HAPPY AND HEALTHY that he proudly announced was free of armpit stains. That fashion sense that dated back to his toddler years.