There’s nothing wrong with wanting to show your hometown pride, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it with this frightfully misleading “Greetings from Chico” T-shirt. It says it’s from Chico, but it could really be from Anytown, U.S.A.
I don’t want to name the store where I found this shameful garment, but I discovered it at a local drug store next to a burrito restaurant across from One-Mile Recreation Area.
Aside from slathering “Chico” all over the shirt, is there any aspect of the shirt that is appropriately Chico?
Do any of the elements (police and fire stations, a post office and bus) resemble anything in Chico? Has anyone ever gone to school at “Butte County School District”?
There’s a farm in the background, which might satisfy Greenline supporters, but it’s not a specific image I would associate with the city of trees and roses.
It’s not too bad that the T-shirt is trying to evoke the idea of an idyllic town, including the cute dog. My beef is that it’s not an idyllic image of a town named Chico.
Change the words around a tad and the shirt could’ve read “Greetings from Chino,” Oroville, Walla Walla or Poughkeepsie. Surely they too must have police and fire stations, post offices and farms.
It’s this T-shirt’s relative lack of effort that raised my hackles. It must be fairly easy to take a basic design and slap a couple of words on it. To this shirt’s credit, the word Chico was placed in five areas.
I became aware of the practice of customizing generic shirts when I bought a sweatshirt from my university as a gift. It was dark blue with a line of white tropical flowers and the school’s name. Although I was happy with my purchase, I was disappointed to come across an identical sweatshirt with a different university’s name emblazoned on it.
Ultimately, Chico may be a “great place to live!” but there are better ways to express oneself.
The Sierra Nevada shirt is a pretty common sight around here as is Chico State garb. Anything that is uniquely Chico or of the north state would be a terrific improvement over this generic garment.
