clothing

[Ron Nossaman]

>Unfortunately, I guess many folks do the judgement thing, and part of that 
>may well depend on what you wear. I think it is unfortunate.
>
>When I go to a class at a convention given by Willis Snyder (and that is NOT 
>a suit - THAT is a tuxedo he wears!), I see Willis in his black tux, and I 
>think to myself (also while considering his experience and wisdom and 
>generosity to teach the class) "what a cool dude - this guy is first class - 
>I like him. And then I go to a class on bridge notching given by Ron Nossman 
>and I see Ron in his blue jeans and tee-shirt, and I think to myself (also 
>while considering his experience and wisdom and generosity to teach the 
>class) "what a cool dude - this guy is first class - I like him.
>
>I dunno, maybe I'm just missing something.
>
>Terry Farrell


Well, I was going to stay out of this one altogether - but since I just got
juxtaposed to and categorized with Willis all at the same time (no
offense), I guess I'll comment. 

Doing service work, I wear black slacks , shoes, socks, and a short sleeved
shirt (button, not polo) of a generally low key color and pattern. No tie.
It is calculated to split the difference between what the shallow and
sundry "you are what you wear" crowd is expecting, and the equally shallow
"it's the soul, man, not the wrapping" types are pretending to endorse. I
call it my "tuning disguise", and it's about as big a concession to the
social expectation of normalcy as I am willing to make on a day to day
basis. It has been my experience through the years that the disguise serves
merely to get me past the front door defense system, and into the lair
where I have a chance to get beyond the diversionary facades and actually
communicate with the customer on a person to person level. A whole lot of
times, I have been initially met at the door by a fundamentally hostile and
mistrusting attitude, based on first sight impression, and ended up
discussing personal issues they very likely never told anyone else in their
whole lives. It's kind of scary, but it's happened a lot. When they ask
about their piano, they get more than they wanted or expected, and none of
it sounds like a sales pitch. They get the truth as I see it, whether
there's anything in it for me or not, or whether it's what they want to
hear or not. This is an entirely new experience for most of them, and it
makes enough of an impression that they don't seem to notice the dress or
hair style after a while. Doing good work doesn't hurt either when it comes
time to remember who to call next time.

So while we may inescapably be what we eat, we aren't necessarily what we
wear - or if we are, I'm not sure I want to know us. 

You know what I mean.

Ron N