Photo Hunt Saturday: STRIPES! Yipes!

One of the things I enjoy about the weekly Photo Hunt is that it makes me more observant of things around me. I notice things I had not previously noticed. This week I learned that stripes are everywhere!

Stripes are in my house: on wrapping paper, sheets and even this Kleenex tissue box.

Some toys have stripes. Did you ever own a Zube Tube?

There's a stripe in the sky outside my house, although this stripe is temporary.

Some road signs have stripes.

Even roads have stripes.

This bus at our church is used to transport people with Alzheimer's to "The Ark" -- our respite care program. See? The bus has stripes.

Many businesses in our town (Summerville, SC) have striped awnings.

Even the window under this awning looks like it has stripes!

These stripes are on the mooring poles in Venice, where the waterways serve as streets. The poles vary by families. Even the gondoliers where striped shirts. Did you know the members of the gondoliers guild are almost all male? It's a very difficult profession to get into and sometimes the work passes down through families. Licenses are limited in number and they, too, are difficult to obtain. It seems that relatives of long-time gondoliers have preference.

This family's mooring poles remind me of barber poles, which aren't as prevalent as they used to be.

Do you know how the striped barber poles came about?

According to Wikipedia, "the red and white stripes symbolize the bandages used during the (barbering) procedure: red for the blood-stained and white for the clean bandages. Originally, these bandages were hung on the pole to dry after washing. As the bandages blew in the wind, they would twist together to form the spiral pattern similar to the stripes in the modern day barber pole. The barber pole became emblematic of the barber/surgeon's profession. Later the cloths were replaced by a painted wooden pole of red and white stripes."

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Have you done something to earn your stripes? That phrase probably came about because of the various professions in which stripes are earned: military, law enforcement, etc. It is now widely used to refer to anyone who has worked hard to earn a position or level of responsibility.

I'm trying to earn my stripes as a blogger!

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