Handsewn Wool Challis for the New Semester. . .

The upper half today. Bottom half included golden tan pleated dress corduroy pants, a brown braided leather belt, my trusty brown Allen Edmonds brogues/wingtips, and some egg yolk-colored wool dress docks. The splayed necktie is not an affectation, but rather it lacks a tie stay loop or useful brand label on the rear of the larger front blade. Hell and damnation! Let's throw caution to the wind once in a while

Well, the Spring 2019 semester kicked off with a bang this morning. So, why not set the right tone by dressing with a little tweedy flair? Of course a playful bit of sartorial irreverence never hurts either, so I stuffed the English bobby pocket square from the folks at 'Put This On' into my jacket pocket before heading downstairs this morning to herd the Young Master into his winter coat, boots, and backpack before heading outside to the school bus stop.

The necktie shown above was purchased a number of years ago at one of my former thrift/charity haunts in our old Central Illinois stomping grounds where, I think, most of the area's retired doctors and attorneys unloaded their professional attire once they no longer needed it. I found numerous items there over a five or six year period, before we pulled up stakes and headed north to Michigan, that continue to form the basis of my daily wardrobe, including the J. Press tweed jacket worn with the necktie.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

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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

The Power of Ideas. . .

T he end is nigh! The autumn semester/term approaches. And while we still have almost two months of summer left according to the calendar, "Summer is over and gone," as the crickets sang in Charlotte's Web . At least for those of us who head back to the classroom in less than a month. In advance of a meeting with my program director late Monday morning, I spent about 40 minutes total during the weekend to jot down several ideas about planned workshops and related activities for the coming 2024-2025 academic year. At an opportune moment, I mentioned "I have a few ideas," and opened my leather portfolio. My director was highly receptive to almost everything I suggested, and we had a very productive planning session for just over 90 minutes. Just about everything I sketched out on Sunday aligns with his own ideas. It's nice when meetings go that well, and two related things occur to me in hindsight. One, it pays to exercise...

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 19...

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