In a life as long
as mine it is not unusual to have picked up a few prizes and
honors along the way. In the fifties I won
two door prizes, a golf club bag at a meeting of Air Force Reserve
officers and their wives (since I didn’t play the game
I bestowed it on someone who did) and two shares of gold mine
stock (which over the years has doubled and redoubled to eight
shares and brings in a cool 49 cent dividend every quarter which
I faithfully enter as income on my tax return) at a New York
conclave of newspaper TV editors.
But my crowning achievement came just a few weeks ago when
I was awarded a tee shirt by America On Line for my seven,
unbroken
years as a faithful retainer. Sort of a Croix de PC.
While I do not collect tee shirts (or even wear them often
except the undershirt variety), over the years I have accumulated
a
noteworthy drawerful of them. The prize of which is one displaying
a full frontal female nude (eat your heart out, Janet Jackson)
of a few-months-old granddaughter of mine. Another shirt
displays another granddaughter as a preteen but only
her face, cheek
to cheek with her father.
Or maybe first place goes to a tee shirt with the reproduction
of a painting by her talented mother, my daughter-in-law,
on it. My Lone Star Zodiac sign,
Armadillo, for Texans born in April and described on the back of the
shirt. “You
are gentle despite your apparent surface hardness. You are shy and, in the
presence of danger, tend to go into your shell and wait for things to improve.
You cross life’s highways with eyes fixed firmly on your goal, looking
neither left or right.”
Then there are about a half dozen Westheimer Colony Arts
Festival tee shirts from the Eighties adorned with colorful
paintings. The outdoor
arts and
crafts and art show was held in the open (sort of like a flea market
with pretensions)
every six months off Houston’s Westheimer Road. As far as I know there
were no Westheimers involved, just an association of businesses on the Road.
I did visit the festival a couple of times when I happened to be in town out
of a sense of noblesse oblige (the Road was named for my great-uncle M.L. around
1858). At one of them I met a young man with a boa constrictor draped over
his shoulders. He let me pet its head.
There’s another one showing music notes fluttering over wine bottles
proclaiming “Vintage 36…And getting better.” 36th marriage
anniversary of a niece. There’s another acknowledging my membership in
the Humane Society. One advertising THE WORLD OF HANNA BARBERA. Another from
the Museum of Television and Radio,
There is a story that goes with the one from the DePaul U. Blue Demons.
Maggie
Dixon, daughter of my best friends, gave it to me. She’s
an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team. And
the TCU Basketball Camp shirt is from her brother, Jamie, who
played basketball there. My Pittsburgh tee also
came from him. Because now he is head coach of the Panthers. (I
have a tee that offsets the Blue Demons shirt. It is from Club
God.)
There
are two for the Air Force. One is plain white except for a
blue strip around the collar and the blue AIR FORCE
on the chest.
The other
is more
elaborate. Black, with the Air Force shield and 50TH ANNIVERSARY
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
on the chest.
The one with the longest name says, If I knew my grandchildren
were so much fun, I would have had them FIRST. I don’t flaunt the tee much that says:
I’m at the perfect age. You can tell that one is fibbing just by looking
at me.
One from the Cartoon Network has a cartoon and the words
MARS PATHFINDER on it. (I have a first cousin three times
removed,
named David
Westheimer, who
is an engineer with NASA and, I assume, associated with the
real Mars pathfinder.) Another from the Cartoon Network features
three
cartoon
mice and BABALOOEY.
A
yellow tee says 2ND ANNUAL MICHAEL P. KAHN KITE FLYING CONTEST
AND 50TH BIRTHDAY JUNE 8, 1986 GALVESTON ISLAND.
The one from
Dave Bell
Associates, Inc, says
A Killer Among Us, the title of a TV movie
I wrote. Jasmine Guy was the star.
And finally there is one from my favorite restaurant, the
Casablanca, promoting L. A.’S ORIGINAL ENCHILADA
ENCHILACA BY CARLOS HARO. Haro is the owner. And a fine
novelist, as well. His latest, Tequila,
is not to be missed. It's self-published and for
sale only at his restaurant. (I could give you his e-mail
address.) If you know a publisher, please tell him there
is
a wonderful novel out there about three generations of
a wealthy Mexican family that owns and operates a vast
plantation, La Esmeralda, cultivating at cultivates
agave cactus and makes tequila from it.
Best novel rooted
in Mexico that I ever read.
