Seersucker Thursday? Seersucker Every Day.

 

By: Taft Matney

Have I mentioned it’s hot?

I know. This probably isn’t a newsflash since your local television station’s Super Duper Doppler Viper 5000 High Definition Weeklong Forecast At-A-Glance looks like a string of binary code and your Facebook timeline is flooded with people taking pictures of their car thermometers.

Nevertheless, it’s pretty stinkin’ hot.

I went to a meeting the other day and kept thinking to myself, “As hot as it is, these people better be glad I didn’t show up in shorts and a t-shirt,” because the thought crossed my mind more than once, and only half-jokingly.

I wore the next best thing. I wore seersucker.

Getting its name from the Persian “shir o shakar” which means “milk and sugar,” this lightweight material (get the cotton or linen made versions, not synthetics) would be the next best thing to shorts and a t-shirt.

Known for its thin stripes and slightly rippled texture, it’s a great daytime/summertime fabric that works well in a number of types of clothing items. I’m not going to turn this in to a column about when it should be worn, if you should wear socks with it, or what kinds of shoes and belts should be worn with it (although if you want to know, email me at taft@crescentmag.com, and I’ll give you my two cents), but I will say that the United States Senate has gone too far.

They banned seersucker.

OK. They didn’t exactly ban seersucker. They banned Seersucker Thursday, a tradition started by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi that was scheduled to take place on the third Thursday of each June.

It was a way for Southern senators so introduce and share this fabric with fellow senators who may have not been so lucky to have it in their closets during summers in D.C.

This year Seersucker Thursday would have been June 21, but instead of placing a call to remind senators about the next day’s annual tradition, cloakroom staffers spread the word that Seersucker Thursday was being discontinued because some senators felt participating would be seen as frivolous when there are so many problems we’re facing.

Maybe it’s just me, but the fact that they had a meeting and a deliberative discussion about a tradition known about by only a few outside of Washington seems much more insulting than wearing a comfortable suit when it’s 110 degrees in the shade.

I actually think the opposite should be done. Wear seersucker every day. When it’s this hot, do you find that you have a shorter fuse? Yes. Are you a little bit more irritable when the thermometer begins to climb? Yes. When you get bothered, are you as willing to listen to other people’s points of view? No.

Make yourself comfortable. For my money, a lot of times, that means seersucker. When it’s this hot, dress for it…whether or not you sit in the United States Senate.

 

NOTE: Hat tip to the wife for giving me the “binary code” math joke.

PHOTO CREDIT: United States Senate for “Seersucker Thursday 2006”