A time to ponder seasons, shirts, stores

This has been a week for observations and pondering ... you know, trying to look busy and productive while my mind wanders.

I’m surprised that summer’s over so quickly. It seems as though it just started, only to be interrupted by monsoon season, then restarted, and now, it’s done. I didn’t even get the pool completely cleaned because of the rain, and now we have an algae farm. I’m still finding Fourth of July fireworks remnants in the yard, and here it is time for Labor Day. Where did the time go?

What we need is a way to stretch out summer, and the nice days of spring and fall, and speed up winter and political seasons. Or, at least shorten them to say, oh, two weeks. Maybe one week for political season.

One observation I came across recently while I was off. Why don’t T-shirt makers put designs and logos on the front instead of the back? There are so many T-shirts with pictures, designs and such that really are cool, but they’re on the back of the shirts. If you wear suspenders or a vest, as I often do, you cover it up. And wearing it backwards really isn’t a good option.

I got a great “Duck Dynasty” T-shirt, but my suspender straps come right through Phil Robertson’s face. So, either I can’t wear suspenders, or I have to wear them under the T-shirt, which works, but feels funny. And with some of my pants, suspenders are a necessity.

It would be nice if the makers put the cool stuff on the front. I never was sure why they started doing that anyway, although I do understand some women are uncomfortable with others reading the fronts of their T-shirts. Of course, these may not be the same women who have no problem with messages across the seats of their shorts.

Speaking of seats and shorts, no, I haven’t watched that video of a certain former Disney star shaking what her mama gave her in front of millions of people. I think it must be just me, and some guy living in a cave outside Del Rio, who haven’t seen that performance from the way folks have carried on about it.

Things sure are a lot different from the days when Walt Disney asked Annette Funicello to wear a modest swimsuit when she started making those beach movies. He’s probably spinning in his cryogenic chamber these days when the career curve for Disney starlets seems to be innocent-but-spunky youngsters, bubble-gum teen songstresses and twentysomething sluts. It’s one thing to be sexy, or try to be sexy, but it’s a whole other thing to just make a fool of yourself. Unless that’s your goal.

Another observation I made during the recent travels with Kim is that across rural Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, there seems to be a Dollar General store every five miles. Not meaning to give the chain a plug, or say anything that knocks it, I’m just observing that this chain of basically corporate mom-and-pop operations has stores springing up like mushrooms across the countryside.

It seemed every time we came to a wide place in the road, someone had opened a Dollar General. Perhaps that’s really a sign on an improving economy with emphasis on serving regular folks. I like Dollar General, especially their store brand flavored water —without aspartame —and the fact you can find Hard Case Crime paperbacks there at a great price.

A while back, I wrote about our container garden, and I thought I’d pass along an update. After we got rid of the tomato worms, after the monsoons, after the subsequent resurgence of heat on our plants, we’ve gotten some good tomatoes and jalapeños off them. The other pepper plants have had a tough time, but they’re still trying to put out peppers, especially one we’d almost written off. The tomatillo plant thus far has produced only one small tomatillo despite an abundance of blossoms at the end of spring. But now, it’s produced even more blossoms, and they’ve already become the husks for the tomatillos, so there’s still hope for salsa.

With this being the last big weekend of summer, you folks be careful out there on the lakes, rivers and highways, and remember to wear your seat belts, don’t drink and operate anything, grill meat to at least 165 degrees and tune in to the Labor Day Telethon. Who knows, maybe Jerry Lewis will be back and try his hand at twerking.