{"id":13795,"date":"2016-03-30T18:49:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T22:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=13795"},"modified":"2016-04-27T11:48:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T15:48:33","slug":"front-porch-perspective-2016-spring-trip-to-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/front-porch-perspective-2016-spring-trip-to-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE: 2016 Spring Trip to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before this column returns next time to the local themes of people, politics and public affairs, below are some unconnected, stream-of-conscious and (most likely) incoherent musings and observations regarding our annual family trip to Florida.
\nThe reflections from our just finished family vacation to Disney World can be broken down into two areas: t-shirts and my rather well known (and soundly ridiculed) prognosticating ability.
\nOne of my favourite pastimes when I am in Florida is to read the t-shirts of people at the various Disney World theme parks.
\nT-shirts \u2013 like bumper stickers – say a lot about people. They are a way for individuals to express their individuality and to make a particular statement.
\nWitness a couple of the slogans that I saw on previous trips:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can either be: a) Gun Victim, or b) Gun Owner \u2013 You Decide\u201d. This kind of caught my attention. The gentleman wearing this shirt was a slightly built, unassuming guy pushing a middle aged woman in a wheelchair. Made me wonder what his story was.
\nI saw a sixty-five year old man wearing a \u201cGive Tiger a break, Obama is screwing the whole country\u201d shirt. Although he was supposed to be in the self-proclaimed \u201cHappiest Place on Earth,\u201d he did not look at all happy and I did not see a wife or any children with him.
\nOne of my favourite shirts, and I saw two different people wearing them, said \u201cI reserve the right to arm bears.\u201d
\nThese shirts had a picture on the front of a huge grizzly bear holding a shotgun.
\nI was not disappointed this year in my continuing quest to find interesting t-shirts.
\nI saw a thirty-something year old man wearing a t-shirt that said \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m busy – your ugly – have a nice day,\u201d although he himself was not particularly handsome.
\nAnother man was wearing a great shirt; it had a picture of a bride and groom on the front and above it was the words \u201cGAME OVER.\u201d
\nThis was priceless.
\nI wanted my own t-shirt. But in addition to the picture of the bride and groom I would include a small boy and the t-shirt would say \u201cGAME NOW REALLY OVER.\u201d
\nAn early-twenties lady was wearing a t-shirt that read – \u201cI jump out of perfectly good airplanes.\u201d
\nA rather intriguing shirt was worn by a two-year-old.
\nThe shirt had a Nike logo on the front with the words \u201cGame Changer.\u201d
\nI guess Mom and Dad expect this little gaffer to be quite the athlete. Good to build the expectations up early.
\nMy trip would not be complete without seeing a few political t-shirts.
\nI did see a couple of \u201cClinton for President\u201d and \u201cCruz for President\u201d shirts, and I also spotted a few \u201cTrump \u2013 Make America Great Again\u201d t-shirts as well as one lady wearing a \u201cTrump – Make America Hate Again\u201d t- shirt.
\nAlthough I did not see the following t-shirt on this particular trip, a number of years ago down in Florida I spotted a guy with my all time favourite t-shirt \u201cNixon and Agnew \u2013 Rested, Relaxed and Ready to Roll in 92\u201d.
\nUsually on these trips \u2018ole Somerville wears a golf shirt every day, topped off with my Toronto Maple Leafs baseball cap.
\nThe Leafs cap has elicited a few different responses over the years.
\nLast March a guy wearing an authentic Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh Penguins shirt shot me a rather disdainful look while in line at the EPCOT theme park.
\nDuring that same trip while I was sitting on the curb trying to have a quick nap near the Splash Mountain ride in the Magic Kingdom theme park a guy walks by and says \u201cGo Leafs Go\u201d and shoots me a big smile!
\nThe last component to our trip was the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament \u2013 also commonly referred to as \u201cMarch Madness\u201d.
\nEveryone down in Florida was talking about the sixty-eight team field and the preparation of their office pool brackets.
\nI am also a big college hoops fan and I was able to catch a number of opening round games on television while in Orlando.
\nWith the first two rounds of the tournament completed, I predict that the Indiana Hoosiers will beat the North Carolina Tar Heels this evening and then proceed through the rest of the tournament to win the Championship Game a week from now.<\/p>\n

Stephen can be contacted at stephengsomerville@yahoo.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville Before this column returns next time to the local themes of people, politics and public affairs, below are some unconnected, stream-of-conscious and (most likely) incoherent musings and observations regarding our annual family trip to Florida. The reflections from our just finished family vacation to Disney World can be broken down into two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Av","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 13:09:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}