September approaches. There is a note of whimsy in the air, at least in the air around me.
By T W McDermott
September approaches. There is a note of whimsy in the air, at least in the air around me.
A couple of weeks ago, I was stopped at a light in nearby Greenwich, when I glanced to my right and saw a sleek yellow Ferrari stopped next to me. This is a fairly common occurrence there, although just as often it could be a Maserati, or a Porsche, a brand almost not worth mentioning these days.
The driver was glaring straight ahead with the kind of intensity I associate with someone who had $300,000 burning a hole in his/her pocket. I revved the 4-cylinder engine of my own brand, a ’97 fire engine-red Jeep Wrangler. That got a look.
I revved the engines a couple of more times. Cracked the guy up.
Some of you may be returning to town from trips abroad or from an island surrounded by beaches inhabited by the neighbors you thought you’d left behind. Those of us who have been here all summer have been watching out for you while you’ve been away, protecting your quality of life.
Rest assured that, when you drive into town and have to settle for a metered parking space, the city’s carefully chosen Digital brand multi-space parking machines will still not accept your first one or two quarters. Instead, your change will immediately make that familiar clinking sound in the returned change slot.
Not to worry, as always, the machine will accept them on your second or third tries; unless, of course, it’s completely out of order. Welcome home!
And, if you happen to be crossing in the “crosswalk” on Purdy Avenue by School Street, you can remain confident that the first several vehicles will not even come close to stopping to let you cross safely. Exciting stuff! Nothing has changed while you were away. There had been a rumor (which I made up) that the city might actually put signage there, or, more radically, provide brightly colored flags to crossing pedestrians, but saner fiscal- heads prevailed.
The situation on the south side of The Thing known as Station Plaza, where some motorists and pedestrians think it’s only a parking lot and others know that it is actually a road demarked by a faded yellow line, has not yet changed! So far, we’ve managed to preserve every ounce of confusion there. Pedestrians still stroll three or four across in the middle of the road. Taxis pretty much do as they please. Black & white Numbered cars leaving a nearby building’s lot run for the hills, and who can blame them.
There was another nasty rumor (not made up) going around that whoever is responsible for never properly paving this plaza/road/parking lot might actually figure out a away to get around to doing it soon.
If you believe that, then I’ve got a “bridge” to sell you just south of town.
School openings loom.
In their excellent book You, Inc. which is meant to be about selling yourself or your brand, but is really about much more, Harry and Christine Beckwith quote the actor, Meryl Streep: “I thought life would be like college, but it isn’t. Life is like high school.”
Poor Meryl! No wonder she wants to be someone else most of the time.
This September will mark fifty years since I entered high school.
I’m sure Ms. Streep was not speaking about my high school, an all-boys’ Jesuit military day school, to which I rode the subway to and fro each day. Life has not been anything like my high school for me and, I hope, for you; it has been a whole lot better, even with occasional bumps.
In 1962, we did not know that we were developing our own “brands,” and, if we had suggested such a thing in my high school, a person affectionately known as The Prefect of Discipline would have said something like, “Brand this!” And you might feel pain in a black and blue upper arm for a few days, while marching in the quad carrying an M1 rifle in your outstretched arms. Hah! Talk about fun!
Not even Bob Dylan or Lennon & McCartney had gone very far along on building their own brands by 1962. Management of our institutions was decidedly top-down, especially high school. Lennon hadn’t “Imagined” much beyond five-chord rock and Dylan was probably still using his high school alias, Zimmerman.
To be honest, for some people of that era, life turned out to be more about the high and less about the school, but maybe I’m not allowed to say that in a family paper, even if it were true.
Returning students will be reminded of the fierce competition to enter elite colleges, the stagnant economy with a paucity of real job opportunities, and the staggering cost of health care. And, that’s just their parents speaking.
Their friends, siblings, advisors, teachers, coaches, test-prep gurus, college marketing yahoos, and their internship/community service managers will mention the importance of creating their own brand. All of that will be well-intentioned advice meant to solidify them as marketable economic beings.
Advice: don’t just bite the brand that will feed you. Rev your own engines at something other than school, keep a sense of humor handy, and look beyond what’s “expected” of you, for surprises, the sillier (and safer) the better.
Surprises are full of life. Vrooom.
