Je Ne Sais Pas

Je Ne Sais Pas

I think of myself as fairly easy going and I've even been told that a time or two. Perhaps you don't quite agree. After all, I am a native New Yorker, although I have lived in the West most of my adult life. I do have a bit of an edge that comes out at times and it tends to stick out more here in California. It is a mild one by New York standards but what I do have is that strong east coast “Yankee” independence. When there is something or a situation I feel strongly about I can react strongly. I also can quickly get stubborn upon being told what to do or how I should behave and I am quick to react. This did not help me during my years in the Air Force and it is often not helpful in my marriage.

As far back as I can remember I have always wanted to make my own decisions and I can be very persistent. I had something like a six year running argument with my father about the color of my dress pants. I'm not sure when it started but I think I was about 11. Every time I needed a new pair of pants to wear for dress-up occasions like church, I pushed for black and my Father always said “No”. My choices were dark blue, or charcoal gray. He might have gone for plain gray and or even khaki, but those were never discussed as I only wanted black. My Father said black was considered a lower class color and in order to make a good impression I needed to wear the appropriate colored pants. It made no sense to me, so we argued. I asked why black was a symbol of lower class and he said “It just is”. I told him “I don't care about that.” He would say something like it may not be fair or right and that it wasn't his idea, but that's the way it was. His position was he was just looking out for my best interests. For years every time I needed new dress pants, which was pretty much annually, we would argue about it for days. I would continue to tell him his reasons didn't make sense and he could never understand why I continued to resist. He won every time. Of course he had an advantage since he was doing the buying.

In the fall of 1961 I entered Memorial Junior High and started 7^th grade. In Junior High students on the college track started taking a foreign language in 8^th grade. I don't remember why, and maybe it was on the advice of my guidance counselor, I started taking French. I had a pretty good teacher and he was in fact, French, but I struggled with the language. I found the pronunciation and spelling particularly challenging. Heck, I struggle with both of those in my supposed native tongue, English. Upon entering 9^th grade at Walt Whitman High School in 1963 as a freshman, I decided I was done with French and decided I wanted to switch to Spanish. My guidance counselor denied my request. His reasoning was I had already passed a full year of French. He felt it was the better language, (why?) and if I switched I'd then be a year behind the other students. His rationalization to me was “You want to get into college don't you?” Well, to me that was a whole different discussion. I decided I needed to bring in some reinforcements and looked to my parents for help. That didn't go well as they sided with my guidance counselor. (Parents did those kinds of things back then, trusted the school administrators.)

Ninth grade started and I found myself stuck in a French class I didn't want. After a few weeks I had enough and I again visited my guidance counselor to plead my case and once more his reply was the same as before, No. Well I had already decided that “No” was not going to be an acceptable answer. You may be able to stop me from swapping French for Spanish and you may be able to keep me assigned to a French class, but you cannot make me learn French. That was still under my control. Since his main argument seemed to be that I was passing my French classes, a totally ridiculous argument in my view, it was now clear what I needed to do. I sat in the back of the class and I started to reply “Je ne sais pas.” (which translates to “I don't know” in English) to almost every question I was asked. I further proceeded to write that for most answers on the tests. My school had a numerical grading system. 70 or better was passing and for whatever reason no matter how poorly you did the lowest failing grade you could achieve was 50 or maybe it was 55. Although I had already passed the first few tests of the semester I proceeded to fail the rest of the tests that semester and I was rewarded with a 58 on the end of the semester report card. I did not get the minimum due to my passing those tests the first few weeks of the class and some minimal participation in class. This got my parents' attention, as you might imagine. They were quite upset and disappointed in me. But, they gave in and with their support I was granted permission to switch to Spanish. That French class was the only class I failed in all my years of public school. It didn't help my GPA, but I hoped I'd convinced, at least my guidance counselor, and maybe my parents, that the person who gets the final say as to what I can or can't do with my life is me.

After high school I left the house for things like the Air Force and college. I had little need for dress pants or suits. Eventually I graduated from college and needed dress-up clothes for interviews in my search for a real professional type job. It was now all my decision. I still liked black but I knew my father had been right, that the “business approved” male business colors were blue/gray. I put off buying anything until just before I graduated. I went out shopping for a blue or gray suit. At the time, due to my body type, there were not many suits in my price range that would fit me. After visiting a number of places, I finally found a European cut suit that fit and I could afford. It was a conservative tan YSL suit. It was the only suit that fit and it only came in tan. It wasn't blue or gray but more appropriately it was not black. I figured I was now on the less formal west coast so there was probably a little wiggle room. It must have been OK as I did land a job with it.

Maybe the status of black in the business world has changed although I suspect that dark blue and gray still rule. Regardless, I subsequently have bought a number of pairs of black dress pants and even a couple of black suits over the years. As my wife Kris will confirm, I don't give up easily when I want something. Years later my father was visiting when I returned from work wearing a black suit. All he said was I looked nice all dressed up. However, I think that was more a comment on the fact that he rarely saw me in anything other than jeans and tee-shirts than any approval of my wearing a black suit to work. I also think he had learned he needed to lower his expectations in regards to my clothing selections. Oh, any form of “Je Ne Sais Pas” was never an acceptable answer when dealing with my father. I always had to have a good or at least a reasonable reason/reply for any of his questions - and he wondered where my insistence for a reasonable explanation came from....