Odds are great that I shouldn’t go there, me being shaped the way I am — round in the middle and bald as an egg on the back of my head — but I have to address the sights I encountered Saturday:
I helped with our Razorbacks coverage of the Louisiana-Monroe game that day at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. My wife dropped me off on Markham and Fair Park near the stadium. Coming in from the west, we ran into the backed-up traffic just before Markham intersects with University and crept on in from there.
Lots of people were walking toward — and for some reason away from — the stadium and a bunch more were partying along the way from St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center over to the stadium, mostly at the expense of the War Memorial golf course.
Because traffic was creeping, we could see the walkers headed both ways and the partygoers they were passing.
First, apparently, the latest fashion trend for women is to wear jean cutoffs with various forms of cowboy boots. Some of the jeans were “torn” and some were hemmed. The younger the woman, the more likely it was that her jean shorts had fringe unraveling. Scores of women were wearing that combination, many with some type of Razorbacks T-shirt or sweatshirt as a top.
A handful of them were attractive in their outfit. A few more were cute, but likely lacked the proper tan to be showing off their legs in front of 55,000 people. Many more were not properly toned to be showing their legs at all. The rest should not have worn clothes that showed they lacked a workout routine.
Second, some of the guys were just as bad. They were dressed in shirts and pants that didn’t fit them — by several sizes in some cases. Some of them showed every lump in their roly-poly bellies and backsides. But I wasn’t noticing them as much as the women. My wife, Nancy, who is an equal opportunity fashion critic, confirmed that both sexes were looking pretty paunchy in their U of A duds.
Of course, these people have every right to dress how they want to for a party before a football game and, possibly, for the game itself. I’m not saying they shouldn’t dress just as they did.
I’m just saying that maybe they should consider how they appear to a casual observer who happened to go by them at a slow pace on Saturday. I don’t mind if they dress that way.
Maybe they should know, though, that if they are wearing the latest trend because they hope to be ogled in a big crowd, they are having a different effect than desired. Chances are good that they’re being noticed for their portliness and not their pulchritude.
A longer version of this post may appear in this week’s editions of The North Little Rock Times, Cabot Star-Herald, Maumelle Monitor, Carlisle Independent, Sherwood Voice and the Lonoke Democrat. You can find online editions of our newspapers at www.pulaskinews.net and www.lonokenews.net.
I knew that Thanksgiving at Lake Ouachita with my parents, our kids and their respective girlfriend and boyfriends would add to the rush. Still, I was surprised that I had not done a better job of scheduling than I had when I noticed how long it had been since I had posted here.
We did have a wonderful time and great food from everyone at the lake house that Nancy and her siblings share out off U.S. 270. Patrick, girlfriend Sarah and his pit bull terrier, Lou, came up from Fort Worth; Molly and boyfriend John traveled from Austin to meet in Dallas with Megan and boyfriend Clayton, who live in Sherman, Texas. They rode up together. My folks came over from their house south of Little Rock. It was a crowd of 10 plus Lou and our Lhasa apso, Daisy, but we had a great time.
Molly and John got up early on Black Friday to go into Hot Springs and fight the crowds for a great buy on GPS units.
Later that day, we headed back in this direction to meet and have some family photos taken at The Old Mill in North Little Rock. Our photographer, good friend Dan Limke, arrived first and called us to say that at least 30 other people had the same idea, so he went across the river to Little Rock and scout out a new location at Heifer Village.
After everyone arrived, we redirected our various vehicles south of the river for a serious of family combinations that tested Dan’s considerable patience. But it was for family photos that don’t get taken often enough these days.
Thanks, Nancy, for all the work that goes into hosting such an event. Thanks, Dan, for working on a holiday weekend to preserve our memories.