Snide comment
At least he’s not wearing those damn suspenders.
Before
A chronicle of an American lifeArchive for October, 2005
Your treat
For a short and I-didn’t-feel-like-writing-it-myself Halloween entry, I thought I would give you the following. Both quotes bear vague relevance tonight. (Photos to follow.)
The law faculty is a distinguished group of prison guards who sit in attack formation at law school assemblies. If you want to know what kind of people law professors are, ask yourself this question: “What kind of a person would give up a salary of a jillion dollars a year in a big firm to drive a rusted-out Ford Pinto and wear suits made out of old horse blankets?” Think about this carefully before asking your professor’s opinion on any subject.
[ . . . ]
Just to prove that at heart they are really gentle, fun-loving people, professors will occasionally do something a little bit zany, like wear a costume to class on Halloween. This makes the students laugh and cheer. Before you laugh and cheer, however, you should check your calendar. It is often difficult to tell whether a professor is wearing a costume or not.
(11,000 words of law humor, to be found at 100 Yale L.J. 1679.)
The other old story I’ve always loved is from the New York Times, on July 27, 2000.
George W. Bush was seething with frustration. Here he was, feeling as Texan as the chaw he liked to tuck under his lower lip, and he had to smile gamely while the audience snickered at him as an alien in cowboy boots.
It was 1978, and the 31-year-old Mr. Bush was trying to get a start in politics by running for Congress here in West Texas. A candidate forum was under way, and his rival was needling Mr. Bush with an oft-repeated joke in which he was the punchline, a yarn that reinforced a perception of him as a spoiled rich kid from back East.
Kent Hance, the Democratic candidate and a smooth-talking good old boy, was telling a yarn about working in a field along a rural road. Then along came a fancy car.
“It was a Mercedes,” drawled Mr. Hance, raising his eyebrows, and the audience tittered knowingly at the hint that Mr. Bush was the kind of man more comfortable in a Mercedes than a pick-up. “The guy rolled down the window and wanted to know how to get to a certain ranch.”
Mr. Hance recounted how he’d given the man directions, telling him to turn right after a cattle guard, a metal grate ubiquitous in rural roads to keep livestock from straying. “Then,” Mr. Hance continued, “he said, ‘what color uniform will that cattle guard be wearing?’”
From the Bureau
We were told that if every person in P&C Systems completed their United Way pledge card (whether or not they actually gave to United Way), we would be allowed to wear jeans every day until October 21st. Corporate drones love to wear jeans. Every day you would get a report of the number of people who had still to complete their pledge card — 400, 200, 75, and it kept going down. The deadline to finish the job was today.
We came very close to 100% participation in the UW ePledge process, with 99.9% of associates completing United Way pledges online by the end of today. Unfortunately, that means no free jeans days will be awarded. However, it was a great team effort and your contributions will go to hundreds of great charities. Thanks for your great participation!
0.1% would represent approximately 2 people.