Professionalism

I gave a lecture last night at the Oakmore Homes Association annual meeting, on the topic of Walter Leimert. This guy was a 1920s real estate man responsible for the settling of Lakeshore Highlands (Trestle Glen) and Oakmore, among other things. He was a very colorful character, playing practical jokes (sometimes not very nice ones) on people, like preventing his brother from watching the last five minutes of a very heated Superbowl game that he had money riding on (he did this in his 90s, in case you’re wondering how 1920s people had televisions.)

I had a great time. The Oakmore folks are really nice. I’m often in Oakmore since it’s a quick walk across the Leimert bridge for me. And now I can call myself a Professional Lecturer since they paid me an honorarium. Thanks, guys!

I’m also a Professional Artist because at a yard sale once a guy paid $1 for something I made. (I always want to be an artist, but somehow it never pans out.) This piece was made out of the cross that your Christmas tree is stapled to, if you should happen to buy one at Long’s Drugs. I took the tree off, discarded it (no, I’m kidding; I decorated it and decked the halls) and painted the cross. Then I attached little milagros to it with tiny carpet tacks. That’s it. That was my famous art piece that a guy paid $1 for, even with the big nails of the crossbar still sticking out the back!

I’m also a Professional Shoe Model. Long ago, a photographer friend was hired to do a shoot for Bitch magazine, and she in turn hired me and another woman to wear the funky, sexy shoes Bitch supplied. The photographer was, I think, not entirely familiar with the Bitch format, and she was staging the photos by doing things like putting rose blossoms by our feet. In one photo, I’m wearing argyle (!) socks and propping my legs up against a tile mosaic that shows men golfing. The other “model” and I kept trying to suggest more lurid, perhaps Bitchy poses—we would pseudo embrace, etc. We wanted to do things like have one of us place our high-heeled boots on the other’s shoulders while sitting facing each other, but instead we got more flowers. In a combined fit of boldness and shyness, I took off my shirt (no bra) –but kept my back turned towards the camera! This was in Lakeside Park, by the McElroy fountain, and I wonder what the joggers thought was happening. Anyway, Bitch magazine didn’t like the “sweet” feel of the photos and paid the photographer a kill fee. Bummer.

My very first job was cutting articles out of the newspaper (to go into subject files for the reporters’ reference), so I guess I’m a Professional Scissors Wielder. Alan was once in a focus group where he had to drink beer, so he’s a Professional Drinker. If anyone out there is possibly reading this blog – my one lead is my cousin’s girlfriend Lynette, although Mike Chorost said he looked at it once—what are you a professional at?