By Phil Hugo Guest Columnist It’s early June, and late spring is casting flirtatious glances at the not-too-distant early summer. Bird song makes its way through an open bedroom window, and I admire multi-colored blossoms in the garden below. With blue skies overhead, it looks to be a good day to get after my part of the world.
I make my way to the bedroom closet and look at the clothes on my side of the cramped space, which is not a great repository of threaded garments. I have never considered myself to be a man of fashion, and if you were to see my wardrobe you might agree. Shirts, long and short-sleeved, a couple of sports jackets, Jerry Garcia ties, work pants and so on.
When I was a handyman taking care of my customers’ properties for some 30 years, e.g. painting, cleaning gutters, trimming shrubs and doing other projects that keep a property functioning and looking well maintained, I wore clothes that fit the chores at hand.
Depending on the season, standard attire was long and short-legged carpenter jeans along with long-sleeved flannel or work T-shirts. Unfashionable function. I’m retired but still consider myself a working stiff because I have our estate on High to maintain.
Today I will pull a pair of work shorts from a shelf, grab a T-shirt and some foundational items from a drawer and show up for work. After breakfast, of course. When I worked in customers’ homes, say painting a bedroom, the closet door might have been closed, and if I needed to open it t.