Chevy

57 Chevies. Several of them. But not 57 of them.

We had a 56 Chevy when I was a teenager. Fine car. Except the radio speaker was mounted facing the front seat passenger. If you had the volume set so the driver could enjoy Rock & Roll, the passenger was blasted. I drove that car on my first dates.

When I was quite a bit younger, we had a 51 Chevy. Again, I'm off a year with the shirt, which has 52 Chevies, but hey ...

I fell out of the 51 Chevy once when the door came open as we went around a corner. I remember being there in the street wondering if my mother was going to drive off and leave me there. She didn't.

Seat belts are a good idea. I was probably young enough that I would be in a child seat by today's standards. Don't let people tell you everything was better in the old days.

It's sunnier today than it was March 30th, and I'm getting better at taking pictures of my shirt.

Maybe I ought to find my tripod, instead of just balancing the camera here and there and making do. Even that is an improvement over holding the camera in my outstretched arm, as I did for the 52 Chevy picture.

I want a shirt with hamsters on it. Platypuses.

90th & 65th

I said yesterday that I was spiffed up with a haircut and beard trim, but I didn't say why: big event today.

My parents 65th Anniversary was December 27th, but that isn't a very good time for a large party that may spill outdoors, so it works better to combine that with my dad's 90th birthday.

If you do the arithmetic, you'll realize that they were married 20 days after the Pearl Harbor attack. Not a coincidence. Does that make a Hawaiian shirt a tacky choice? I hope not. I don't think I'll wear the one with the battleships sunk at Pearl though. Not the patchwork either. I'm still making up my mind.

Spiffed

This shirt isn't from my shock & awe collection, and it almost got me in trouble. Or maybe it was being all spiffed up with the haircut and beard trim. Whatever the reason, I had a clerk show doubt about my deserving the old guy discount today.

Of course, she couldn't see my T-shirt peeking out of the sleeves. That might have tilted things back.

She gave me a look, and I said, with some resignation, "I am an old guy."

I got the discount.

Fifty-nine cents off.

I could have shown my Medicare card.

Fearsome

A little while ago I posted a nice silk aloha shirt that I chose to wear for today.

But Chris is coming to have lunch & go to the beach, so once she was safely enroute and couldn't be checking my blog, I changed into this Shock & Awe (schlock & awful?) special.

Like most of us Aspies, Chris has some sensory issues ...

[chortle chortle chortle]

Silk

No shock & awe today. Instead, a rather nice 100% silk. It's rougher & thicker than most silk shirts I've seen -- what would that be called?

Palaka

If you have wondered about the distinction between Aloha Shirt and Hawaiian Shirt, a key part of the answer is Palaka. Before the first brightly colored and patterned Aloha Shirts were ever made, there were Palaka Shirts being worn by plantation workers and other laborers in Hawaii, as unclearly shown in this image linked from an interesting site arguing that Hawaii is not legally a state. The first (partially out of picture), second (dark hat, facing right), and fourth (bending over) workers appear to be wearing the distinctive dark blue and white plaid known as Palaka. The other two may be wearing white or natural shirts, or severely faded Palaka. [Click on the image for the full-size version.]

There were a garbled mish mash of reasons that got me interested in Aloha shirts, none of which should have made me interested in Palaka, but it seemed like wherever I read about the history of Aloha shirts, I would find discussion and pictures of Palaka, and eventually I wanted one of my own.

The heyday of Palaka was the late 1800s through the 1920s, but much more recently they have become a way for people with Hawaiian roots to subtlely distinguish themselves from those wearing Aloha shirts, in a quiet bit of oneupmanship.

I'm not Hawaiian, never been there, probably never will be. But I like the shirts.

Not so Fierce

Back by popular request: Archie McGillicuddy McCat.

Fierce

I'm fierce!

Ummm ... I would have kept trying for a good picture but the juice was frightened out of the camera batteries. So this is it for today.

I go now library & errands.

Shock & Awe

Okay, maybe "shock & awe" and "nice shirt" aren't at opposite ends of the same scale. I think this one rates highly on both counts.

My attempt at an Evil Grin doesn't seem to look that evil, just dorky -- sorta like Chris's Fierce Look isn't all that fierce.

Oh well. At least my hair's combed.

And for those who are inclined to complain if there isn't an occasional cat picture, here's Webby supervising the recording of a float plane shirt.

CVB

Not long ago i started getting some aloha shirts from thrift stores, primarily to confuse and perplex my friends and family. Some of the shirts might qualify as "shock and awe," others (especially the one Eliza gave me for my birthday) are really rather nice, even subdued.

I think this one is maybe midrange on the "nice shirt" to "shock and awe" scale. But don't the aircraft carriers qualify it as somewhat of a weird shirt?

This picture was taken to test camera position and self-timer, and I had initially thought to go for a better shot -- hair dried & combed, evil grin on my face -- if it worked, but hey ...

The Brady Whetstone

I stopped by my parents today, and was shown this picture of the The Brady Whetstone, my grandfather's newspaper in Brady, Montana. I had never seen anything like it before, and borrowed the picture for copying. My grandfather, Joe Whetstone, is surely the gentleman second from the left. (Click on image for larger version.)

A story that I have been told many times, was that when the town applied for a post office, they were told that the existing name duplicated another post office already registered in Montana. So the leading businessmen of the town -- the storekeeper, the newspaper owner, and the saloonkeeper -- flipped coins, and the town was named for the winner, whose name was Brady (or O'Brady?).

If my grandfather had won the toss, the town would have been named Whetstone, and my middle name would surely not be Brady.

I have always taken some pride in being named after a one-eyed saloonkeeper of early Montana.

Interesting Brady links: schools, high school, blurb