Shooting Star T-Shirt

It was our last day in Seattle. Carl had taken us to Pikes Place Market. We had stopped in Starbucks store #1, coffee Mecca, and latté up. We toured the market and saw the flying fish, bought some Beecher’s cheese and were ready to head out, when I decided that I needed a souvenir t-shirt. I had in mind a traditional Northwest Native American art t-shirt. Something archetypical, like what is seen on totem poles. I had seen several on our first go around. Then I saw the t-shirt pictured above. According to the women selling it, its art is based upon the tootsie-pop. According to Wiki:

Some stores redeemed tootsie-pop wrappers with the “shooting star” (bearing an image of a child dressed as a Native American aiming a bow and arrow at a star) for a free sucker. This was clearly up to the store owner and not driven by the lollipop manufacturer. Tootsie Roll Industries distributes a short story, The Legend of the Indian Wrapper, to children who mail in their Indian star wrappers as a “consolation prize”. A superstition of the same wrapper is that it gives the bearer good luck for the rest of the day.

She didn’t have any XLs, which I prefer. I like my tees to be loose and baggy, but she talked me into a large and besides, I wanted it anyway. The t-shirt vendor/artist also practiced art on herself. She was festooned with many tattoos, hair highlights and piercings. I asked if I could take her picture, but she demurred. She thanked me for asking though. I told her that it usually worked out better that way. The legend’s superstition proved true, because we had a lucky set of flights home and Joanie was there to pick us up when we arrived. Compared to our flights out, this was good luck.