FOUND!

     Found this "blank" in the trash around the corner from my house this morning. It appears that it was a long/fun board that someone stripped and attempted to cut down into a short board, then realized that they were off their rocker (pun semi-intended) and threw it out. It's about 5'6" x 19 1/2 x 3, and that's 3" almost all the way through.

     The problems with the blank are the 19 1/2" wide point is about 1 1/2 feet forward of center; the tail gets pretty narrow, and it looks like someone tried to shape the nose with a hatchet. Also, there's the finbox and some glass on the tail, as seen below.

     That glass is easily ground off. So really, if board was a bit wider, it would be a usable blank. But, what to do?

     As if by magic, an idea emerges! My plan is to eventually glue those rail cut offs onto the board, figure out a template, and make something within the restrictions presented by the situation. I haven't worked on anything yet, but I have ideas in my mind of either a mini-simmons type board or maybe a small egg-type. We'll see. That won't be for a while yet, as I've got some more important boards to make.
     Waves coming this weekend, and if the forecast stays like it is, it could be glorious. Let's hope. For now, everyone take care in this heat. I know I almost died this morning running in 94-degree-in-the-shade heat. Good practice for the Dog Day Race, which is coming up. Of course, when you get blisters on your feet because the ground is too hot, something's not quite right there.

[Spoken:]
Ooh man, dig that crazy chick.

Who wears short shorts
We wear short shorts
They're such short shorts
We like short shorts
Who wears short shorts
We wear short shorts.

[Repeat 2x]

     Those are the lyrics in their entirety to hit by New Jersey's own The Royal Teens. Not much of a deep message here, just digging those short shorts with some really fun summertime sax solos. But, really, if we were to look a little further, we might be find that there's more going on here than it  initially appears. 

     The song, a #3 hit, was released in 1958, which was a few years before short shorts, or hotpants, really took off in London, thanks to fashion designer Mary Quant. So, in 1958, these "crazy chicks" were a little ahead of their time, and instead of being fearful of ridicule, they are bold and courageous in their ultra-cropped clothing. "Who wears short shorts?" asks the male, who in the post-war America that forms the backdrop to this song was the dominant member of society, the one who asked the questions, and who got answers. So, at seeing this revolutionary new garment, he demands answers. He wants to know who is behind this symbol of social upheaval that could be equated to the freedom-loving flappers, with their jazz and their bobbed hair and their short skirts (he shudders to think that this could be happening again, but no, it couldn't, not in his America). So, who's responsible for this outrage. And the women of this song, instead of being ashamed, instead of hiding, declare, in a resounding chorus, "We wear short shorts!" 

     Then, taken aback, the man, hoping to win with reason, says "But, they're such short shorts." And the women know that that is the reason, that they are such short shorts, and that they "like short shorts." So, in the final couplet, the man has changed his tone, looking out to the world, asking the question just so the women once again can answer and let the world know that they, in fact, do wear short shorts.

     Or it could just be a pretty fun song with some good sax solos. 

     Next time, how The Coasters (who have so many hits that you'd recognize that they are like their generation's Tommy James and the Shondells), with their 1959 single "Charlie Brown," foreshadowed the student protests and complete overhaul of the Universities in the United States and around the world in the coming decade. The lines "Walks in the classroom, cool and slow /  Who calls the English teacher Daddy-O," clearly shows this Charlie Brown to be a passive protester, and unlike those hotheaded Frenchman of 1968 he keeps his cool, all the while causing just as much damage as a Molotov cocktail. He greets his English teacher, who is a staunch believer in proper grammar and rock-solid traditions of language that can not be shaken by some know-nothing student, he greets this teacher with a new term, his term, one of cool disrespect that the English teacher would have never dreamed of addressing his mentors by. A term that would not have even appeared in his professor's OED, that's for sure. But, in fact, it's in there now, first cited use 1949, and Charlie Brown is letting him know that this colloquial slang term is here to stay.

Oh Charlie Brown, he's a clown, that Charlie Brown.

                                                I'm not even going to reread all that nonsense.