I've been featuring 'Hump Day' photos from photographer Andrew Bowman since last Autumn and as you can see today's theme is baby blue. I am not usually a big fan of baby blue. I'm not normally drawn to it, especially painted on walls in a room. I don't buy baby blue clothes, or even like traditional baby blue colors for infants. The exception however would be with men's underwear, especially briefs. I've told this story before, but for those who missed it, the reason is very specific, and stems from a brief moment in my high school gym.

When I was in high school, I played Riff in West Side Story. I'm sure that I'm not the only 'Riff' to have had a crush on the guy in my production's Tony. That guy I'm sure many of you know. He was a popular, good looking, (cute, more than sexy) and a jock. There is always one jock in high school who ends up in the school musical. I played basketball in high school, but was never considered a jock. These guys were different, they didn't only play sports, but were popular. Sometimes they were recruited, other times, they just drawn to different interests.
Although a jock, this Tony had artsy parents. A mother who painted, a father who played in the city's symphony. This provided him a varied array of interests, and his status as a jock, allowed him to weave in an out of things like the musical. This made it 'slightly' cooler for the rest of us who were mocked for dancing around the stage with our prop knifes.
I'll never forget the day that baby blue became one of my favorite colors of briefs. We were in the gym rehearsing, when two of the mothers who were doing the costumes showed. Although most of us were wearing jeans and white t-shirts of our own, the director wanted to see us all in our costumes. Most of us headed into the locker room to change, but not the cutie playing Tony. He stripped down right there in front of the director, the mothers, and those of us who stayed back to watch,


He pulled off his shirt, then his sneakers, then his pants. then bent down and pulled his costume out of his book bag. I'll never forget those 45 or so seconds, with him standing and bending in his tight baby blue briefs. What followed was a chorus of blushes. Not just from me, but also a couple of other cast members, as well as those two moms. We all felt a flush of red come over our faces and a tingle down our bodies. I don't think he noticed, but I also don't think he really cared. Those baby blues, are embedded vividly in my consciousness.