Hey, Kids, What Time is It?



It’s Labor Day meaning that the first day back to school has just about arrived. Sorry, Alice, but SCHOOL‘S IN FOR AUTUMN. Yes, PLENITUDES of pencils. PLENITUDES of books. PLENITUDES of teacher’s dirty looks. That is unless you’re in one of those weirdo progressive schools that cost your folks a mountain of dough. In which case, your educator will form a vexed countenance and scribble down some concerned notes that will go into your folder which will be part of a discussion between your parents and a team of mewling child psychologists.

Of course, there’s a way out of this if you want to forestall the burdensome responsibility of learning to use a protractor and what the chief export of Sri Lanka is – inappropriate tee-shirts! Just as sure as a switchblade comb will be confiscated from you not to be seen until June, one of these shirts will get you bounced out of class faster than a deadbeat at a Vegas casino!

Of course, this only works for kids in public schools with slovenly dress codes. Sorry, Catholic School kids.It also helps if you’re going to school in the early 1970s and your teachers and school administrators know that Panama Red and Acapulco Gold are drug references rather than obscure cartoon characters on the television. If they don’t get the shirt’s inference, prepare for a butt-numbing day at school!

Another stumbling block was getting your Mom to iron on the offending transfer to a shirt. In this case, you’d have to hope that Mom wasn’t hip to the drug reference. If she knew what it was, you were sunk. Oh, no, Mom. It’s a guy on the Bugs Bunny cartoons!

This ad is from an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man published in 1973. In a way, iron-on tee-shirts were like tattoos today. They were hip and happening, and I remember several shops on the boardwalks at the Jersey shore that sold nothing but iron-on tee-shirts. The walls were filled with shirt designs similar to a tattoo shop. You’d pick out the design and have it pressed onto a shirt of your size and favorite color. Of course, the advantage of tee-shirts over tattoos is that you weren’t stuck with David Cassidy on your chest for life.

Me? I never went for drug reference tee-shirts. I went for the movie and comic reference tee-shirts. I know I had a Star Wars tee shirt and I seem to remember a Jaws shirt. Hopeless.

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