Thinking of clothing fit for males, chickens and dogs

The near constant drizzle that we have had for the last week, or so, it seems, has ended. It is still colder than a well-digger’s … pocket warmers. I must always qualify that remark. I am up at the top of the northern Texas coast. The temperature is 49 F with a stiff 15-mph North wind making the windchill seem about six degrees cooler. The relative humidity is 86 percent. I’m sure that adds something to the misery.

Normally, I’m a rainy-day type of guy. But sometimes enough is enough. More so especially when it is chilly.

With six pockets full of even more qualifications I fully realize I have friends across the U.S. where it is even colder. It is 33 F with a 40 percent chance of snow tonight for my friend Sally in western Massachusetts. It’s in the 20s and 30s all week with a chance of snow toward the end of the week in Anchorage, Alaska, residence of my friend Elizabeth. Still, while friends from the cold places in the states like to kid us about what we believe to be “cold” weather here in Texas, most would prefer their own cold hometowns to ours.

One plus about down South juking is you don’t have to buy a lot of different clothes. I say you don’t have to. That doesn’t mean you won’t. I find myself shopping in clothing stores for fairly inexpensive coats though I don’t know if such a creature exists during the winter months. I have a windbreaker that is acceptable for about 60 percent of cold weather. For about 20 percent I have a coat I bought back in 2005 while I was out on a reporting assignment and a big chill quickly arrived. It is a very warm coat, nothing fancy. It has a hood. When I used to walk every day no matter what, I would wear the coat and a warmup suit underneath on very cold mornings. I wore a knit cap covering my head and my ears and my hood was tied close. I used to laugh because I reminded myself of Kenny McCormick, the often-killed, insensible sounding kid from the adult cartoon “South Park.” As for the remaining cool weather wear I have a brown tan Gary Player front zip jacket. It goes with about 3/4 of my “bidness casual wear.”

But just as women seem never to have enough shoes so do I never seem to have enough clothes and especially jackets. That is ridiculous of course, I see no reason to spend tons of money on something I may only wear once or twice a year. This is not a “layers” kind of place where I live. Most of my shirts are short sleeve Polo-style shirts.

Until I began my present “part-time (32-hour/week) job” almost eight years ago, most of my pants were shorts.

I have always thought that if I won millions in the lottery that I would buy bunches of clothes. I feel it would be practical because I would definitely go on a successful diet and need to buy different sizes until I got to the “just right” size. Plus, I would travel here and there and would need different kinds of wear because of varied climates.

In reality, I need to buy a couple of pair of pants for bidness wear soon because my keys have taken a toll on the sloppy sewing from the pockets to the outside seam I always seem to encounter. Either that, or it will be me sewing them by hand.

So I am and have long been a fairly functional, low-maintenance creature, as far as clothes are concerned. Emotionally low-maintenance is another matter, or so I have been told. Oh well. Most of the time “there is no one in here except us chickens,” as the old saying goes. If I really had chickens, again, I might buy them some diapers or some Depends. Why? Why not? This is the same man who once gave his half-Doberman half-Great Dane a dickie to wear.

In other words, it don’t (sic) mean nothing.