Classes for the fall term kick-off tomorrow, and I meet my students for the first time at 10:20 and 11:30. So, out came the iron earlier this afternoon to press tomorrow's shirt, a 19-year old Land's End 'Original Oxford', and a stack of white cotton handkerchiefs.
The shirt is one of several remaining from about 2003-2004 when I took my first teaching job at a small (now closed) college outside Minneapolis-Saint Paul. That first year, I took the opportunity to beef up my professional wardrobe with additional jackets, shirts, neckties, and odd pants from the likes of Land's End and L. L. Bean, which had not yet gone full on stretchy comfort mode.
At the time, you could still find a number of suitably (ha, ha) professional looking items at reasonable prices. And while I already had some of this gear hanging in my bedroom closet, a bit more was necessary to avoid wearing the same three shirts over and over again. It wasn't quite that dire, you understand, but I realized that it was time to look a bit more pulled together and varied day to day than graduate school typically demands. Especially in the Humanities. Heaven forbid you look like you actually give damn. About yourself or anyone around you.
Fast forward to 2023, and you still can't go wrong with an OCBD-collar shirt. I figured with this one that I'd go for something a bit different from the usual light blue or white. The handkerchiefs (not shown) are for my inner left blazer or jacket pocket where I also clip one of several Cross ballpoint pens and carry a small black comb as well as my university ID card.
And no. You NEVER blow your nose in your handkerchief and stuff it back into your pocket. These items are for your eyeglasses, to dab a moist temple or forehead, or to give to someone else who might need it. But never a yucky nose!
Once of the many bits of instruction provided by my later father, maternal grandfather, and other men in the extended family during my formative years.
Otherwise, I'm not yet decided on the rest of tomorrow's attire. Still, the course webpages go live at midnight tonight, tomorrow's first lesson is planned, and the slides uploaded to the Week One course module in our learning management system for those who don't manage to make the first day of the course. There are always a few to the tune of, "Uh, so what'd I miss?".
Still, onward and upward, eh?
-- Heinz-Ulrich
Some of your readers may not be familiar with this essay from the May 1987 Lands’ End catalog:
ReplyDeleteTHE PLEASURE OF IRONING A FINE COTTON SHIRT
by Roy Earnshaw
My wife is still asleep. I’ve exercised (quietly), showered, eaten breakfast. Now comes time for a familiar early morning ritual.
I take a cotton dress shirt from the closet, a wrinkled cotton dress shirt, shrug it off its hanger, and drape it over the ironing board.
Some men might smirk at the sight of me preparing to iron. “What? You iron your own shirts? John Wayne never would’ve!”
Well, call me a pantywaist, but I happen to enjoy it.
I plug in the iron, check the water level, turn the setting to — what else — cotton. Then pause for a few moments to let it get hot.
The room where I iron is a barren one. No furniture, just the ironing board. A “room we haven’t figured out what to do with yet,” having just recently bought this house. I suppose one day it will fill up with things, but right now I like it this way. Its spartan aspect seems well suited to the art of ironing.
I start with the left sleeve, first spritzing on water with a sprayer, then ironing it so flat, it almost looks as if I could pick it up and slice bread with it.
I turn it over, do the other side, then the cuff. Then on to the other sleeve, while the ironed one dangles just above the dusty wood floor.
(My wife tells me my technique is all wrong, but then so did my golf coach, my typing teacher, other authority figures. I take a perverse pleasure in doing things my own incorrect way.)
Now the back yoke, and a couple swipes at the collar. The easy parts. And then I sweep the shirt up off the board and down again, with its back spread out flat before me.
Sometimes I botch the back pleat, and have to do it two or three times. But no one is watching.
The ironing board cover bothers me. It’s a cheap one, full of childish flowers in jarring hues. Orange. Chartreuse. Purple. The colors of fast food restaurants. I miss the plain white one my mother used to have, with its humble dignity and burn smudges.
I press on. (No letters please — bad puns harm no one.) The cotton cloth is soft, sturdy in my fingers, and responsive to the iron. I swear, it enjoys being ironed! Almost seems to purr. It has a wonderful, tightly-woven texture to it, and glistens with the heat of the iron, and the soft light of the room.
Again I sweep the shirt up off the board, and down again, to do the right front, skating in and out around the buttons, then the left, using plenty of water and going over the stubborn placket again and again, bearing down, until it finally yields and becomes flat, neat. I am finished.
Now, the final pleasure of slipping into the toasty shirt. Especially keen now, in the February cool of the house. It almost crackles as I button it up, tuck it in.
The finches in the back room start to peep as first light looks in the windows. Time for me to go. But I leave with a sense of contentment, knowing that whatever large debacles or small frustrations await me, I have at least done one small piece of good work today.
Perfect! Thank you, Old School!
ReplyDeleteKind Regards,
H-U