We couldn't all be cowboys , , , ,

Can you remember back to kindergarten, when the teacher asked each member of the class what they wanted to be when they grew up? It's funny to think of it now, a room full of 5 or 6 year old discussing their career plans and ambitions as if it was always at the forefront of their imagination. forget snack time, cutting and pasting, getting to be the line leader on the march to board the buses, or learning how to tie your shoes. No time for kids' stuff, we had bigger fish to fry. There were all the usual doctors and lawyers and even a few cowboys, which seems remarkable for the Southern Connecticut suburbs in the mid '80's. Guess i'll have to chalk it up to syndicated reruns of Bonanza every Saturday morning. I'm almost positive no one ended up being a cowboy, and i can't help but wonder if most of those kids never had a shot at being doctors and probably no small number of the aspiring prosecutors have found themselves in need of good lawyer; funny how that sort of thing works out. Of all the possibilities i pronounced with great certainty that i wanted to be a comedian. No joke (and no pun intended), i told my teacher i wanted to be a comic. Oddly enough I'm not sure how i came to that conclusion but I'm positive i was serious since I wouldn't develop a capacity for sarcasm and an inability to take these kinds of questions seriously for another 10 years or so. So there i was, in a room full of future doctors and lawyers and real-life class clowns, the fat-cheeked kid in the striped polo shirt with the dutchboy haircut who just wanted to make people laugh when he grew up; and I'm not even sure if i knew any jokes.

As it it turns out, i never did become a comic. My profession of choice is so far removed from most peoples' notion of what's funny that i probably won't be replacing Dane Cook any time soon. I work in the exciting world of studious academics where loony toons ties, pleated pants, brief cases, frumpy shirts, and cardigan sweaters are almost required for entry into the field. At best a few have managed to master the unimaginative and unofficial male uniform of khaki pants and a blue shirt, but even that's a stretch and probably only due some intervention on the part of their wives. I look at most of my colleagues and i see someone who has dressed themselves while semi-intoxicated in clothes they borrowed from either Elmer Fudd, Goofey, or any one of the Muppetts. I read a memoir last year written by a young man traveled to Cornell from India to study and the first thing he told his young wife when he called was, "our rickshaw drivers dress better than my professors." I've seen rickshaw drivers, so things must be really bad in Ithaca. I count my lucky stars and an absence of colorblindness that I don't fit that description at all. Truth be told, i can't figure out if it's just because i haven't met the right cartoon character from whom to get hand-me-downs or because i just drink from a different form of kool-aid. Neither of us understands one another, each seeing the other as some oddly dressed mannequin from a different time and place which neither of us is able imagine. I tend to see teaching as something to be enjoyed that i try not to take too seriously (while understanding that it is still serious business) while for some the notion of personal appearance and any hint of personality takes a back seat to the studious business of stuffing kids heads full of knowledge and using words like 'metacognition' as if it was the first thing they'd uttered after exiting the womb.

So though i may not have become a comedian, I take comfort in knowing that surely some people find a reason to point their finger at me and laugh.

To quote Adam Duritz: "we couldn't all be cowboys, so some of us are clowns."

Now, if i could just find my face paint . . .