I (heart symbol) my 'I (heart symbol) George' shirt
The year 2007 was really one for the record books.
Not only did I visit my fourth state; get to meet, interview and attend a concert put on by Bonnie Guitar and make Twinkie pancakes, but it was the year I finally got my "I (heart) July 4 in George, Wash.," T-shirt.
I've put my heartiness of George's various celebrations on the record quite often in previous My Turns.
How often does one get to spend Presidents Day, Independence Day or George Washington's birthday in a town more patriotic than George, Wash.?
I don't know why more patriotically minded people across the nation haven't made George a must-see destination. It's the only town in our country with the full name of a president, unless one day we have a President Phoenix Arizona or Quincy Washington succeeds in some election.
Aaron Sorkin should have based an episode of "The West Wing" in George; National Public Radio should have devoted a "This American Life" to the town's 50th anniversary celebration in 2007. Why don't more people know about George?!
At said celebration, I was again faced with the shirts I had seen throughout the event worn by coordinators and random July 4 enthusiasts while covering it in previous years. I finally asked a volunteer if there were still any available.
When she said yes, I still didn't get too excited. I've been burned before.
"Is it available in my size?" I asked, not daring to dream.
When she replied in the affirmative, I whipped out my wallet and paid for it on the spot, then promptly put that baby on. As the cotton slid over my skin in the summer heat, it was as though the planets had aligned and all was right with the universe. I was meant to have that shirt.
Since making the purchase, I have certainly done my part in trying to raise awareness of George and its celebrations. Even wore it down to Florida, so there are tales Orlando and Jacksonville residents tell one another of that obnoxious guy from Washington State who wouldn't shut up about giant cherry pie.
It's the kind of shirt one meets one's future wife while wearing. In fact, I'm convinced I'll be wearing it somewhere crowded and, there amongst the great and massive throngs of people, I'll spy her, wearing her own shirt with Abraham Lincoln or, better yet, William Henry Harrison upon it, and our eyes will meet and …
"And the rest was history," we'll tell our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will roll their own eyes, having heard this story so many times they know it by heart.
Wearing the T-shirt has become akin to other great, favorite T-shirts I've worn throughout my lifetime, like the "Ghostbusters 2" shirt I wore in the late 1980s until it literally fell apart and off my person or the aqua-green T-shirt with the tan khaki shorts I plan to resurrect from my closet the instant such an ensemble becomes sane in an appropriate climate, so probably in late March.
Of course, wearing a favored T-shirt until it wears thin comes with its own dangers - brushing against barbed wire, for instance, or if some genius decides to give a particularly well-placed tug.
Or, as was the case with my first George T-shirt, which fell prey to a recent lunch at one of my favorite fast food haunts.
In retrospect, that dab of fry sauce was particularly precariously placed atop my french fry.
The stain came out, but I didn't want to take my chances any longer. Anytime I like a particular article of clothing, it's like the forces of fate have marked it for destruction in the form of spillable substances.
So I called up and ordered two more shirts, thus guaranteeing I can spread the word about George for many years to come.
Matthew Weaver is senior staff writer for the Columbia Basin Herald. His father took him out of "Ghostbusters 2" the first time they went to see it in theaters because it was a little scary for an almost nine-year-old, but later that summer he got braver and they went back and watched it all the way through.