Now, finding leather gloves in
Miami isn’t that easy, especially in the summer. And I wanted black thin ones
at that. I went on a quest and eventually found a pair of comfortable calf
gloves with just the right look and fit. I put them on, hopped on my motorcycle
and BOOM!!, a new man emerged. I found that I didn’t have to keep them on to
have them work. Just show up wearing them, carefully remove them and put them
in a pocket. Kind of like a blankie or binkie. I mean it really worked. Even I
was amazed at me. Then one fateful day I lost them. Or more precisely couldn’t
find them in time. And to my even greater amazement nothing changed. The inoculation
held.
The next iconic crutch I thought
I needed was a white lab coat. My first full time job as a professor included
lectures in a very large lecture hall. And me without my gloves. So, I put on a
white lab coat and marched into the hall, confident but scared. It went well. I
thought the coat gave me a cachet I needed to be “the man”. Of course I was
wrong again, and after a year or two forgot to wear the coat to class and was
fully in control and respected.
So the point? I am guessing that
generations of students that have been in my classes would never have guessed
that underneath the calm and self-assured surface lurked an insecure soul. I
don’t know how “normal” this kind of behavior is (my son-in-law could and
hopefully will let me know) because I have never discussed it with anybody(except Sally of course). I
suspect it is not unusual. And BTW, what prompted this is a Beatles song. I was
listening to oldies the other day and the line “I get by with a little help
from my friends” struck a chord. A thought came unbidden: “My friends in those
days were a pair of gloves and a lab coat.” Of course I had some human friends
too.
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