A BLAST FROM THE PAST!

I wrote this article back in April of 2009 and it is most appropos today as we were "this close" to putting our winter jackets away and then...SNOWSTORM!!!

Do you know who must really love Saskatchewan? Clothing manufacturers. As a wise person recently stated, “In Saskatchewan, there’s no bad weather only bad clothing”. How true. That’s why we need lots of it. Clothing, that is.


Here in good old Saskatchewan we may have any one of the four seasons break out on any given day of the year so your wardrobe better be adequate and accessible at all times.

You will, of course, have to have your standard set of parkas. A heavy one, a heavier one and the heaviest one. Ditto for head gear and footwear.

Especially at this time of year, (late winter or early spring or whatever it is), one may have to put on or take off, depending on the temperature, one, two or three layers of clothing during the course of a day.

“Honey, have you seen my ____________ coat?” (fill in the blank with fall, winter, spring, hoody, waterproof, windbreaker, fur-lined or hockey, which, of course, will be all of the above), is a question you will hear at many a Saskatchewan home.

This question is usually followed by the scary answer, “It’s in the front closet”. Which will then be immediately followed by a huge groan.

Which brings us to the other manufacturing group that must love Saskatchewan: the distributors of closet organizing products. Coat hooks, shelving, clothes hangers, boot racks and closet rods must be sold by the millions here. Whether they are ever installed and used as directed is another question.

I have never spent any time in a place like Arizona but can you imagine how little the residents would have to own there?! I would think that a couple of pairs of pants, a few shirts, a pair of flip-flops, some shorts and 100spf sunblock are about all that would be required.

I’m thinking that a single closet would probably hold all of their stuff. Here, we need a few closets, a couple of dressers, a trunk, a box in the basement for winter boots, a box in the basement for summer shoes, a box in the basement for rubber boots, a box in the basement for cleats, skates, ski boots, flippers, curling shoes, snow shoes, a box in the basement for…I know, I know, you get the drift!

Aaahhhh Saskatchewan, ya gotta love it! If “variety is the spice of life” then we’ve got plenty of spice! Think of how boring it would be to live in t-shirts, cut-offs and sandals all of the time. When would you ever get the chance to show off your new turtleneck, or bathing suit, or parka, or shorts, or touque, or thongs…

“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.”-Kin Hubbard (1868-1930).