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April 03, 2005
Fun in the Summer
One summer when my dad was working in southern Indiana my brother, sister and I visited him for a week or so. I can't say exactly how old we were - I don't really remember. I dude remember, however, the shirt my brother constantly wore and can attempt a date from that.
The shirt was a light blue t-shirt with "Alaska 82" in big numbers across the front. Having never gone to Alaska, the shirt was surely gotten second hand. Maybe even third hand, but definitely after 1982. Also, it was worn constantly - meaning the visit was before the (really outstanding if you think about it) year-long run of his black Hubble Telescope t-shirt. That laundry-less stint was 1989-1990.
If I had to give it a guess I'd say we visited our dad around 1987. We showed up at his tiny one-room apartment and we mesmerized. He had purchased a compact disc player; we all gathered around staring in awe as he played a CD in front of us for the first time. The Beatles. Ooh ooh. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! "Can I touch it?"
No. We couldn't touch anything. And when he was gone at work we had to play outside.
There really wasn't a whole lot to see or do for the three of us in the middle of an apartment complex in the middle of Indiana. We ranged in age from 7 to 11 and couldn't find a playground. There was a basketball court but we had no ball and the kids that did didn't seem too anxious to let us play. Things went pretty slowly until we found a creek on the edge of the complex we could play in.
Time flew by as we ran through the water on the hot summer day. We picked up rocks and built dams. We diverted the water in all directions. We had such a good time some of the older kids took notice. A highschool girl (why they always "highschool" back then I'll never know) called over to us "Hey! Are you guys from Alaska?"
"No!" We turned and got back to work. We had more dams to build. Why would she think we're from Alaska? The shirt had become so ubiquitous the bold lettering across the front of my brother's shirt had lost their meaning to us. She noticed it, however and took it to mean that we could be fron Alaska. We had to be from somewhere else. No kids from the area would have played in the open sewage drainage ditch.
Posted by calculatoronfire at April 3, 2005 08:40 PM
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Comments
a couple things:
FIRST:
"I dude remember, however, the shirt my brother constantly wore and can attempt a date from that."
DUDE! i dude remember that, too!! heh.
SECOND:
"we visited our dad around 1987. ...We ranged in age from 7 to 11 and couldn't find a playground."
I.AM.SO.FUCKING.OLD.
g'night everybody!
Posted by: sweetney at April 3, 2005 09:36 PM
It's the way all the cool kids are speaking these days.
I dude this and I dude that.
Posted by: brian at April 4, 2005 08:02 AM
Off subject:
I found another site that I think you would like:
http://www.40ozmaltliquor.com/main.html
Posted by: chris at April 4, 2005 09:02 AM
No worries. I'm pretty sure dude is the past tense of do. I never understood how t-shirts lived long enough to become secondhand. I wear mine until they disintegrate. Of course, much of the damage caused to a t-shirt comes from washing it. Perhaps, if you don't wash a shirt, they can last well into seondhand and even thirdhand life. I did receive a brown sleeveless shirt (what are they really called? I'm pretty sure wifebeater isn't the actual term) from my cousin which featured a shiny plastic iron-on of Mork's head and his catchphrase "Nanu Nanu". It was so ugly I doubt it would even be retro cool now.
Posted by: mike at April 4, 2005 11:05 AM
Mom ripped my other favorite shirt because it represented evil, it was a secondhand shirt from great america advertising the DEMON. Luckily I am no longer poor and can afford a plethera of shirts. pardon my spelling
Posted by: nick at April 5, 2005 01:08 PM
When I was a kid, all I needed to have fun was a ditch with a trickle of water running through it. Hell, I still eyeball tiny streams and think of where the best place to put a damn would be.
By the way, the info for the next happy hour is up at my site.
Posted by: anonymouscoworker at April 5, 2005 04:30 PM
Washing destroys t-shirts.
Posted by: brian at April 8, 2005 04:46 PM