Think about this the next time you're watching a student bend down to stick their iPhone in their pants pocket, 16" below the waist-band of their boxers. The caption from here reads: Smoking: Three homeless people from South Ferry doss houses are in Battery Park on June 6, 1941
oops - wrong waste
If you look close you will notice wear spots on the jacket of the guy on the far end, the one in the middle has a wrinkled blazer, the one closest to the camera looks the most hobo-like (jeans and a work jacket.)
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say? You weren't dressed unless you had a cap, jacket, or tie on in the 1930s-1940s.
This is actually something I've been struggling with in new!job.
ReplyDeleteI had many students in my old position that were homeless or borderline homeless (sleeping on couches, shuffling from relative to relative or friend to friend). Even if they were living out of the backseat of their freaking car they found places to shower, clean clothes (if not new), and did their hair.
Compare this to my male college students who brag about not having showered since the beginning of the term (I have one who plays intramural sports and brags of never showering and how upset it would make his parents--gross!) and....
....here's the thing...
I want to grab these students by their freaking ears and shake some sense into them. Do they have any effing idea how LUCKY they are to HAVE a shower to freaking REJECT in the first damn place?
No. No, of course they don't. And I wish there were some way to smack bloody sense into them, but until you know people who have lived with considerably less and realized how lucky you are, I don't think that anybody really gets it.
sigh. stupid young(er)(ish) people.
Sorry, but I can't get worked up about his one, because if we held to previous standards of "decorum", I would still be excluded from most institutions of higher learning.
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDelete"This one."
Freudian? ;)
My Little Proffie,
ReplyDeleteThese guys might LOOK better than Captain Funktastic the Intermural Sports Geek, but they probably SMELLED the same or worse; baths were a twice-a-week phenomenon until the 1950s....actually, as these guys were living in a flophouse, they may have showered on Fridays as well.
I'm guessing Cap'n Funktastic uses Axe to keep the stank from killing everybody, right?
I just think it's cute that the photo angle makes it look like two of them are holding hands.
ReplyDeleteStrelnikov's comment reminds me of when I boarded a commuter train in a major city in Russia. Everyone in the crowded train car was impeccably dressed, right down to shined leather shoes. There was nothing in my closet that could match the style and class of the clothing that most people were wearing. However, the stench of unwashed bodies was so overwhelming that I had to keep from gagging so that I wouldn't call attention to myself.
ReplyDelete@streiny
ReplyDeleteIt has gotten to the point where I wish he would use Axe. As far as I can tell he's done nothing--no bathing, no cologne, no hair brushing, nothing--since the term began.
I had a teacher that could pull people aside and point out how offensive they were becoming somehow without pissing them off. I lack that magical skill, so I guess I just sort of have to live with it.
I remember moving away to school and how everybody's parents told them to keep their checkbook balanced, not sign up for crazy credit cards on campus, to go to class....
...someday, I'll be telling my kids they better damn well take a freaking shower...
Ah, Russian commuter train funk....you know, they're going French. 18th century French, but still....if this happened in the 1990s, then a lot of those passengers had a choice that day: spend money and time heating water for a bath, or just dress up. They dressed up. If it was winter in the 1990s, the stench would have been worse, because people would have been recycling clothes for a week or two.
ReplyDelete@ My Little Proffie
And Cap'n. Stank will remember this year as a wonderland of datelessness, weird looks, and the coach finally taking him aside to say "Cap'n., TAKE A MOTHERFUCKIN' BATH; your stench is going to give me scabies, YOU HEAR ME, SON?!"
Well come on, folks. Since this time we have become decadent and silly. What's the matter, haven't you ever watched MTV?
ReplyDelete