One of the perks of being a college professor is that you’re allowed a certain amount of eccentricity. Sure, you can be eccentric in any profession, but it’s almost expected from the ivory tower literati. Offbeat outfits are one outlet available to the discerning eccentric.
Sometimes, this manifests itself as a steadfast devotion to a particular outfit. One professor I had seemed to choose between two outfits: green pants with a white shirt, or blue pants with a white shirt. If it was cold outside (for Phoenix), she’d add a grey sweater vest. The sweater vest was a favorite of another of my professors. Once he put it on, it was a fixture until he decided to leave it at home in the spring.
Other times, a particular item of clothing is the focus of an eccentricity. I had a conductor who owns a different tie for every day of the year, and therefore never wears the same tie twice during any 365 day period. I’m not sure if he has a leap tie or not. Similarly, one of the assistant deans at FSU only wears silk bow ties. I don’t think he has quite as many as that conductor, but he has quite a few.
I haven’t yet nailed down my preferred career path, but being a bassoon professor is certainly an option.
The Boy Scouts (and more properly, my parents) have ingrained in me the need to always be prepared. As a result, I have taken the precaution of selecting an abnormal accoutrement, just in case I do end up at a university. I will have a collection of hats. Not the standard hats of today: ball caps, beanies, golf hats, visors, cowboy hats. I mean real men’s hats: fedoras, panamas, pork-pies, trilbys, top hats. They will go with my suits, my tuxedo, and my casual clothes. A hat for every occasion.
There. Now that that’s taken care of, I can get to the easy part — finishing my masters, getting a doctorate, and becoming one of the ivory tower literati.
One Response to Planning for the Future
Mrs. T.
Replied on: November 29, 2005, 3:51 pm
We get it — you like hats.