I think that Zack must have been in grade school and he had an assignment that related to “careers”. You know… what do you want to do when you grow up? The idea was to start the kids thinking early about career directions… prepare for the choices in course study that would support a path to this career or that.
Zack loved dinosaurs (he still loves dinosaurs… in fact, I still love dinosaurs). I made a couple of calls to Yale’s Peabody Museum & actually got to speak to the head of the Paleontology Department. He was nice enough to FAX me the course requirements for getting into the program… and then he put down a few ideas about what the career entailed… what it cost, what it paid… that sort of thing.
Lucky for Zack… at an early age he identified that, as far as dinosaurs went, he enjoyed the product of other people’s efforts; but “no thank you” to spending summers in the Utah desert with a pick and a brush, eating dust, battling flies, and sweating your balls off. “I’ll just go to the museum, watch specials on cable, or leaf thru oversized books.”
Still the question remained… what do you want to do when you grow up?
One day we were driving around town… and it hit me. Look at all the nice homes in the area. Who owned them? Not everyone is a Doctor or a Lawyer or a highfallutin’ Investment Banker. And further, not everyone went to Wharton, or graduated with a fancy degree in whatever. There were folks who made a very nice living, owned a home, a nice car… a condo in Florida and a big frigging boat… Just like Dave Smith who pumped gas at the Shell station.
Well… that’s not exactly the story. His father actually had owned the station… turned it over to Dave… and now Dave has turned it over to his sons: David, Sean and I forget the third son’s name.
None ever went past Norwalk High.
And Dave? Today he’s well tanned, works when the boys need him to fill in… he has a new girl friend, big car (several) & everything else previously alluded to.
So much for paying 35K per year to go to an Ivy School.
But this is not a story about career decisions or opportunities on Monster.com, Zack, Dave Smith, or the cost of a college education.
This is a story about an improbable appearance.
My Dad had intoned… “At the 21 Club there is always a Kriendler at the door… at Chipp there will always be a Winston at the door.” And so when I launched my career at the ripe age of 22, not knowing the difference between a “four-in-hand” and a “Windsor Knot”, I was given a simple task of greeting people when they walked into Chipp with a smile, a hello & how can we help you?
This was necessary because our salesmen only wanted to greet their customers… and they didn’t want to waste time helping a guy who was picking up his altered clothes, or selling a $10 tie when there were bigger fish to fry.
So there I stood, not knowing shit from shortcake, not recognizing one of the “Captains of Industry” (as Dad liked to call them) from some schnoerrer wannabe… and all I could think about was I hope I don’t look stupid... which of course I did (much to the amusement, I might add, of the store salesmen who were many years my senior).
Then there was the day that I greeted this customer as he entered the store. He was about my height but stouter in shape, he was wearing a medium grey herringbone 3 piece suit (and this was at a time before vests regained their popularity), a crisp white shirt with french cuffs jutting out the correct length from the suit sleeve, a white linen handkerchief folded with precision into his breast pocket, and then a subdued English print silk foulard tie to complete his attire. His hair was silver and combed straight back… and I thought, this isn’t a Captain of Industry… it had to be at least a ‘Major’ or maybe a ‘Light Colonel’…
“Good morning… may I help you?”
He gave me a good look over… made a quick assumption about who I was, and then said, “Tell your father that Mr. Hoffman is here…”
Now if either Paul or Alan were on the floor at this time, I am sure they were hard pressed to stifle their laughter…
But in short order the purpose of Mr. Hoffman’s visit was made clear. His assistant soon entered the premises carrying the tools of their trade… you see Mr. Hoffman wasn’t a customer, Mr. Hoffman was our plumber and he was responding to my Father’s call that we were having difficulty with the commode (commode? don’t you love the word commode?) in our basement stockroom.
I was told to escort Mr. Hoffman (and his assistant) to the offending toilet… we trooped downstairs… when we got down to the bathroom I figured Mr. Hoffman was going to tell his assistant what to do and then observe the handiwork. Not so.
Mr. Hoffman surveyed the scene. Then I realized that the assistant was behaving more like a “caddy” for Arnold Palmer. While Mr. Hoffman decided what “club” to use, he took off his suit coat and put it on a hanger that had been proffered for him by the assistant, he carefully took off his cufflinks putting them in his vest pocket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, loosened his English silk tie, unbuttoned the collar button, asked for his “seven iron” and then got busy fixing up the toilet…
He wasn’t long at the task. When thru, he washed his hands at the adjacent sink, buttoned his shirt, pulled up his tie, rolled down his sleeves neatly, put on his cufflinks, the assistant helped him on with his suit coat, he then checked his appearance in the mirror, putting final adjustments to the tie, combing his hair and then summoning his assistant to follow him up the stairs… It was like they were walking from the green to the next tee…
Before leaving he said to me, “Tell you father everything is in order…”
So forgive me if you catch a big warm smile on my face right now… I just love this story. And while you’re at it, ponder this… I wonder who dressed better — Mr. Hoffman, or the head of Yale’s School of Paleontology?
