Friday Morning Meeting Style. . .

Here's how the upper half looked this morning. A Polo University Club wool flannel blazer (thrifted about five summers ago) worn over a pink and white University Stripe OCBD shirt with an old Land's End necktie that I purchased about 10 years ago. I added my PKP pin when I realized that the person I was to meet today needed some way to recognize me. It worked.

And here's the bottom half. Yet another pair of gray flannel pants, charcoal Merino wool dress socks, and a pair of Allen Edmonds cap toe oxfords. Very supple shoes that I could easily wear all day. If more guys were aware of how comfortable good quality leather dress shoes can be, the bottom would soon drop out of the athletic shoe industry. Call it a hunch.

And the same shown here beneath my trusty old London Fog trenchcoat, purchased new during the summer of '99 before I left for Norway, along with a wool scarf that Mom and Step Dad gave me one Christmas over 20 years ago. The coat is a bit worn in places now and no longer repels moisture quite as well as it once did, but when clean and pressed, it is extremely comfortable and still looks good I think.

A cold one here today with bits of snow and ice coming down from the sky occasionally. A good reason to hunker down and remain inside since I normally have no commitments on campus during Fridays this semester. However, I had a meeting scheduled with head honcho on the executive committee of the local Phi Kappa Phi chapter about the possibility of serving in some way, shape, or form. So, time to shower, shave, and pull myself together after shuttling the Young Master through his own morning routine and getting him to the school bus.

Must admit, that I felt pretty good leaving the door and heading to the car considering that it was still so darn early. And do you know? It was the oddest thing. Lots of people, from the desk clerk at the Kellogg Center check-in desk in the lobby, to the greeter at the State Room restaurant, to random people I met on the elevators greeted me very politely and/or provided the requested assistance with a smile. Same thing when I stopped to pick up a few things afterwards at the supermarket on my way home.

The argument might be made that what I point out here simply comes from good customer service training in both cases. And that may very well be. However, I have found many, many times that people tend to react to and treat you differently -- better -- when you DO NOT look like you've spent several days living beneath Oscar the Grouch's garbage can. Just my opinion, of course, which makes that observation very easy to dismiss for many people, but I nevertheless think there is something to it.

I certainly remember how people reacted to and treated me when I wore nothing but tight jeans and t-shirts as a young long-haired rocker back in the 1980s and early 90s. . . despite everything my family tried to tell me and instill during those early years, and before I understood fully what they meant. Then, the other penny finally dropped about 1995, and I could not help but notice how things changed -- markedly -- once I decided to have my hair cut short and begin dressing better as I wrapped up my undergraduate work and continued with graduate school.

Appearance matters. Like so much else in life, I guess, people either get it, or they don't.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Glenda MooreNovember 14, 2015 at 11:27 AM
You always look great, of course; this is an especially nice look today. Grandmom and granddad always told us, "Dress up when you go shopping, you'll get better service." Seems as though your experience (and ours) proves it.

Classic Style

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