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Blogs by Marge B. Fulton
Evocative T-Shirts 9/25/2008 3:30:13 AM
One shirt leads to another... Recently, one of my blogs was accepted on...
http://www.blogged.com I am trying to figure out yet another online world. Feels like driving overseas I guess. Anyway, lots of the bloggers there include pictures in their pieces. This knack must give them higher ratings. Folks on AD do this too and very well. Yesterday, I used a zillion photos to make my book trailer. I am pictured-out; I will paint you one here instead.
Picture patches of fog and the smell of a Hardee's breakfast in your vehicle. You pull up a hill and see red lights flashing. Experience tells you this is normal. Why, it's a school bus and small children drag themselves across the street to ascend into the big critter.
A mom watches her boy make his way and then turns to retrieve something from her trunk. In the fog, you can barely tell what she is doing. You still wait for the red lights to cease blinking. So when your eyes fix on her t-shirt, they flutter like the a strobe light.
Her shirt reads, "Eradicate Marijuana." Then you get mixed signals. Could she be a DEA/ Unite Task Force Mama? They must keep low profiles. Anything is possible. More probably this is one of those off-beat, tongue-in-cheek logos or designs. I suddenly want to know what the front of her shirt says. I am curious what her child may understand and wonder if he can read yet. Granted in the morning, I have stumbled to my car a time or two in something less than desirable to the general public. Just not brazen or brassy such as this. We are cool people but I don't broadcast it.
It can happen anywhere. My subject in writing is often the country way of doing things. There is a cadence here that I love. Few people put forth airs, maybe that is why the air smells so sweet.
When I taught in public schools, one of my favorite reading units was one on a city mouse and country mouse. I love this tale to death. With my special education students, we would expand this in many ways. They would share stories about times they went to Lexington or Louisville. We wrote journal entires about trips to the hospitals in the city or drew maps of our own little town.
It was a springboard for teaching that is relevant. It is something you really don't do anymore in these No Child Left Behind days and times. Later, we made booklets with postcards from points of interest in our state. We also used a map of the USA to plot the University of Kentucky's away games. They wrote letters to my nephew, a city kid. I got fired up offering up a smorgasbord of city and country activites.
Kentucky itself gives rise to amazing lessons from Ft. Knox to Ft. Boonesbrough to the Kentucky Derby. On Derby Day, the smaller children pick a horse and make a sign to wear on their backs. At recess, they race in groups and drink mock mint juleps. It is more fun than gambling. Kentucky is paradise!
City and country meet in an uneasy alliance. It has its share of hang-ups. Someone told me that our family blended in well here because we were from the South. I was glad to hear that but not sure why it happens like that. Maybe Folks from Dixie are less condescending. Folks from up north are all different as Jelly Babies though, just like us. Society wants to pigeon-hole. My nest is just fine. And I have a little story about a racy t-shirt.
Our daughter brought back a funny shirt from the Bahamas. This one had miniscule pictures of people at the beach, atleast a hundred of them. One and only one of them was topless. Our youngest son wore it to school proudly. It was brand new. It spoke of class and clout.
He must have been talking about it. I really don't think the topless woman stood out. She was tiny as an ant and would have been easy to overlook. Maybe he stared at her during lectures. By the end of the day, he was wearing his exotic tee, inside out.
No matter how small, impropriety stands out. Whether in the city or country, it sends a signal. Atleast in school, the authorities enforce good taste, as best they can. Thongs with hip-huggers get through this needle just fine however.
In the city, maybe that other mother, would blend in. We notice the little things here. Being little makes us more sensitive to change and contrast. Here you notice when someone has a new bumper sticker. Some of those are really tasteless.
Another day, I will maybe get to see the other side of her shirt. It may signal her character, whatever the other side says. It may not mean a cotton-pickin' thing! The back was enough for today.
I suspect the eradication theme of it meant, to burn one. Not burning down a whole field either. No, I am not offended by any means. Just observant as always. As a teacher I expanded everything as it seemed the important things in life had unlimited possibilties for learning. My son's racy shirt has been cut up and sewn into a memory quilt. The red lights are flashing. I must stop for now.
