Astronomically, of course, summer lasts longer than Labor Day. Sept. 22 is the last day of summer. If you want to get very technical, the Old Farmer’s Almanac informs us that the season changes with fall beginning at 2:19 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 22. So if you have summer goals, get them done that Monday morning.

My spring and summer have been reasonably good in many ways. A trip to New England around Memorial Day was a highlight. (Oddly, Memorial Day is considered the start of summer, though technically, summer started on June 20.)

One goal of the trip was to get a T-shirt from a place my wife lived as a middle school kid — Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. I needed to replace a T-shirt from there that I used to have. I had double success. I came home with two shirts.

The story of the loss of the original T-shirt could be a column all by itself. Instead of that, here’s a quick list of facts:

1. I was a leader at a church lake party at Palisade State Park for college age kids.

2. An amply endowed female visitor attended wearing a Swimsuit Illustrated type bikini. There appeared to be danger of “fall out.”

3. People were distracted (by people, I mean everyone, but I especially mean people of the young male persuasion, and well, the not so young too)

4. I pulled off my snazzy New Hampshire T-shirt which made me a little bit more bare chested than our strikingly attired guest.

5. I approached the visitor, introduced myself, and offered to lend her my shirt saying, “I think this might help you from getting chilly out here, and I think Extra Large is probably your size.” (I’m kidding!! I did not say that last part. But I might have thought it.)

6. She said, “I think you may be right — thank you!”

7. She put the shirt on and I never saw it again after that outing.

8. I hope that shirt is continuing to live a long and happy T-shirt life and is inspiring people to visit Hampton Beach, NH.

One of the new shirts I got displays the motto of New Hampshire. You know what it is: “Live Free or Die.” I wore it around the Sanpete County Fair to show that I want to live free — not because I want to die.

That motto on a T-shirt has a little more pizazz than Utah’s motto which is: “Industry.” I can’t say that I’ve seen anyone wearing an “Industry” T-shirt. Maybe I should make a bunch of them and sell them at the Utah State Fair. (Yeah, that would be a good idea — not.)

The New Hampshire motto originated with Revolutionary War Gen. John Stark. I don’t think that Brigham Young poked a sword in the air and yelled “Industry” when Johnson’s Army came to Utah during the so-called Utah War.

It is now not lost on me that even though I said that I could do a whole column about that T-shirt story, I’ve essentially done just that — not intending to do that.

I have lots of T-shirts. I remember the stories for most of them. And that’s a problem. When I know the story, it’s much harder to retire the shirt.

Here’s a sample conversation explanation to my wife: “How can I get rid of that T-shirt? It’s from Tulum in Mexico and is still in good shape.”

“Yeah, I know I got it second-hand at Savers in Orem, but we were actually in Tulum on our 25th wedding anniversary 26 years ago.” (It’s a great conversation starter shirt.)

Well, I’ve gone back to the top of this piece and changed the title so that it relates to the T-shirt theme. There’s not enough space now to cover the topic I originally had in mind. I’ll get into that material here in a week or two or three, if it still seems like a good idea.

Those who know me quite well will know what I was thinking of writing about when they read this next sentence. The title of the column I started with for this piece and now just changed, read: “Ice Cream, Candy and the Summer from Hell.” So, there’s a teaser of sorts.

My parting advice now to everyone is that when you go to the lake or the swimming pool or the beach, take an extra T-shirt — one that you don’t really care that much about. You never know. It may be put to good use. — Merrill

P.S.: My brother routinely packs an extra swimsuit on trips.  He has, on occasion, loaned it out to someone who didn’t bring one.

Thinking it was silly to take two, my wife pulled an extra swimsuit out of her bag before leaving on a trip with her cousin in early May. It would have come in handy in Israel for her cousin whose luggage never made it to Israel. The cousin had to make do with men’s trunks and a T-shirt.