Everyone Is Crazy For A Sharp-Dressed Man

With apologies to ZZ Top for today's title, I had a fun experience walking around Marquette's campus today.  This morning I had a meeting downtown which required that I wear a business suit.  This had been my daily uniform for so long prior to losing my position to downsizing almost 18 months ago that slipping back into the clothes and persona was like greeting a life-long friend.  The meeting went well and I found myself all dressed up with no place to go at Noon.

Marquette is an urban campus located on the fringe of the financial district in downtown Milwaukee.  I wanted to check out the status of the posters I'd hung there on Friday, to see if they'd survived the weekend.  So I drove the several blocks and plugged the meter for about an hour.

I then proceeded to walk around to all of the buildings where I'd hung posters.  Freshly shaved, dressed in a dark grey wool overcoat, black suit, white shirt, silk tie, and well polished Allen Edmonds loafers, I couldn't have stood out more from the masses of students, most more than twenty years younger than me, moving around campus.  I was amused but happy to receive the genuine smiles thrown my way by many of the students, and couldn't help wondering if they regarded me as someone who may be able to hire them.  Even the faculty nodded politely to me as we passed on the mall.  The respect which can be commanded by a formal set of clothes is noteworthy.  It was only three days earlier that I'd walked the same path in jeans, sweatshirt, a two-day beard, baseball cap, and backpack slung over my shoulder and was utterly unnoticeable.  But put on a suit and people assume it is a commercial banker and not a writer in their midst.  :)  Such is life.

I was happy to discover that all of the posters I'd hung on Friday were still in place and visible, with the exception of the Union bulletin board that is cleared weekly.   Also, the FWTB website had 41 hits over the weekend!  The only places the URL has been promoted are on this website, Twitter, and the posters I'm hanging.  So hopefully the activity will keep increasing!
Tomorrow I head north to UW-Oshkosh to hang the first round of posters there.  Then it will be time to call for advertising rates in the student newspapers, with the thought of having ads in those papers when the students return from Thanksgiving break.

I hope you had as good a Monday as I did!  Read something tonight that teaches you something you didn't already know!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon