Old bridge coat still keeps me warm

This morning, I found my old bridge coat in the hall closet, brushed away the lint and put it on. This relic from the life I briefly lived as a Coast Guard officer has served me well. The long, heavy wool coat is the warmest coat I own, and partly for that reason, it's one I rarely wear. Most days in North Carolina, even the cold ones, do not require a coat designed to keep an officer warm on the bridge of a ship in the North Atlantic. Its double row of naval-style brass buttons provides a warm double layer that is warm even in the coldest wind but is too formal for most occasions. I bought the coat, a required part of my uniform wardrobe, from a second-hand naval uniform shop while I was in Officer Candidate School 38 years ago.

Long before I bought my second-hand bridge coat, I wore my father's World War II Navy pea coat after I discovered it beat anything you could buy for warmth. It kept me warm through college on long walks to class on cold mornings and continued to serve me well in my civilian career until the day it was stolen in the late 1980s from the back of my wife's car parked at the church where she worked. If I could replace that peacoat, I would, but more recent versions of the classic double-breasted Navy-issue pea coat that I have seen were not as thick nor as well-made as the one my father was issued in 1944.

When the overnight temperature drops into the teens, seldom-worn heavy coats earn their keep. Modern fabrics and insulation make these scientifically engineered parkas warm without so much weight, but nothing I've found can beat a Navy bridge coat or pea coat for cozy warmth.