One thing I love about Lake Havasu City is that shorts and T-shirts are the attire of the day. I rarely wear anything else. You can’t differentiate between billionaires and the average Joe by the clothes they wear in this town.
For me, wearing shorts and tees hasn’t always been the case. In Alaska, there were summer days worthy of such, but these were short-lived. I sported them while cycling, but even then, long pants came in handy on rainy and windy days, which were often. Hypothermia was something I learned about in school, and I wisely avoided it.
My favorite tees are those designer ones purchased all over the globe. Lightning Bolt surfboard T-shirts were my favorite when I was young, and I still have the first one from Hawaii. It’s now in a shadowbox frame hanging in my garage as a memento of sorts. My daughter used it as nightwear, and I have a photo of her modeling things when Miranda was around four years old.
I’ve got a tee from the first ‘Street Machine Nationals’ in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This was in 1976, and it was the largest gathering of car enthusiasts, with well over 1,000 cars. That vehicle record was recently broken when over 3500 vehicles convened in Tulsa for a cruise.
Joleen and I still have sunburn scars from that Tulsa show 50 years ago because we didn’t wear enough sun protection. A year later, in 1977, in St. Paul, Minnesota, I picked up a shirt at the ‘Street Rod Nationals’. That one has moth holes in it yet is still packed away somewhere.
My wife and I have attended ‘The Run to the Sun’ here in town for more than three decades, and we still have plenty of shirts from those events. I wear the older ones on occasion, and I’m surprised at how many senior residents do the same.
These days, I’m always looking for unique newer shirts, with my latest purchase being a nice one featuring the Havasu Cars N’ Coffee logo, which takes place at Rotary Park on the first and third Sunday mornings here in Havasu from sunrise to 9.
Another recent purchase features Albert Einstein working on a small-block Chevrolet with a wrench in his hand. I’m not sure when that picture of him was taken. Several of my most interesting pieces of apparel come from, of all places, the local second-hand thrift stores. I’ve discovered shirts from events I would’ve liked to attend but couldn’t.
Harley-Davidson tees were my favorite for a while, but at close to $40 a pop, that fetish soon ended. One shirt that I have my sights on proclaims, “I welded and it helded.” Only mechanic types will get the humor here.
My Havasu ensemble now consists of around six pairs of shorts and approximately 200 T-shirts. Some ‘Run to the Sun’ golf shirts are also included with the collection.’ I don’t play golf in these, but I do wear them to special events and out to dinner.
During Alaska winters, I remember calling Randy Randall in Havasu several times, with him telling me how warm it was, and that he was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. He did this to ‘rub it in’ more than anything. These days, I can do the same, but so far have refrained.
The summer months have a majority of the specialty shirts with California locations, while the winter months have a plethora of shirts from different states. I like to read them whenever possible, yet then again, don’t want to be caught staring at folks, especially if it’s someone’s wife or girlfriend.
Perhaps the funniest shirt I’ve ever come across was worn by a woman with weight issues. She still had a sense of humor with her shirt reading, “I beat anorexia.” I wanted to laugh, but held back, not knowing whether to or not.
My most prized shirt with a humorous motif came from J.C. Penney here in town. I’ve gotten more comments on it than on any other. “I’m not trying to be difficult – It comes naturally.”
That saying seems to get truer for me with each passing year. Friends, family, and my wife will agree on that. I’ll take it as a compliment.
I like to write junk... 