Ties

Anthony Gregory likes to wear a tie. I do not. One of the benefits of my job is that the office went casual year round several years ago, so we almost never have to wear a coat and tie. We don’t have customers, just vendors, so whom would we be trying to impress? Each other?

Occasionally, we will have visitors who will be dressed up in business suits. I call them “The Suits”. Without their attire, most of these guys would be recognized immediately for the lightweights that they really are. I reckon that’s the main reason to wear a suit. You want to baffle people for a few precious moments before they figure out that you are an impostor.

I had to wear a tie and jacket when I made court appearances back when I was a litigator. One lunatic judge in Citrus County, Florida made the lawyer who was appearing just before me change his tie. The guy had on a string tie to go with the cowboy look that he affected much of the time, but Judge Crazy reckoned that it was not sufficiently respectful. Instead of going all the way back to his office or home the next county down, the lawyer borrowed an old tie from a friend. It was a ghastly polyester thing from the early 70s. It was wider than a bib and had a knot as big as a poodle’s head. When the lawyer showed up in court in that godawful tie, Judge Crazy cited him for contempt and had him arrested and jailed on the spot.

When I worked for the VA in DC, we had to wear jackets and ties unless the air temperature reached 95 degrees, in which case we might dispense with them. At 100 degrees we could wear short sleeves or even short pants. Every year, we had an “ugly tie contest”. In 1987, the winner was not even aware of the competition; he just happened to wear really ugly ties as a matter of course. Most of the lifers at the VA were really dowdy looking. They were a soulless lot, and this was reflected in their dingy, drab clothing.

When I worked in law enforcement, I wore a clip-on tie. This was to prevent a suspect’s grabbing me by my tie and choking me with it. An added benefit was that the clip-on always had a perfect knot. I can never get my tie right on the first try. It’s either way too long or too short, and the knot is twisted into an unattractive mess.

I always end up with food on my tie. For this reason, Mrs Vache Folle would buy them for me in bulk from street vendors in Manhattan, and I would throw them away if they got any schmutz on them. Now it’s not an issue since I wear a tie fewer than five times a year.

My favorite tie ever had smiling Jimmy Carter faces and peanuts in rows. I got it in 1976, but it has since been lost to posterity. My second favorite was the white polyester clip-on bow tie that I wore to the Homecoming Dance in 1973. It was almost as big as my face and was visible from outer space.