Songs, The Baboon Congress

The Cruel War

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Photo of Frances Clalin Clayton By Samuel Masury – Public Domain

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

Last Sunday I came upon this article in the Minnesota History segment of the Mpls. Star Tribune – it’s about a St. Paul woman, Frances Clalin Clayton, who followed her husband into the Civil War in 1861, pretending to be his brother. Frances saw her husband killed a few paces in front of her during fighting in Tennessee – “charged over his body… driving the rebels with the bayonet.” There are varying reports of how her identity was ultimately revealed.

After Frances was discharged, she lost her papers and money to Confederate guerrillas on a train, and apparently spent some of her remaining life trying to collect money she was owed for her and her husbands’ service.

To maintain a convincing masculine identity, “Frances Clayton took up all the manly vices. To better conceal her sex, she learned to drink, smoke, chew, and swear. She was especially fond of cigars. She even gambled, and a fellow soldier declared that he had played poker with her on a number of occasions.”  —DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons, 2003

I was immediately reminded, as I read the article, of two songs that were surely played on TLGMS (the late, great Morning Show, the radio program that brought many of us to this blog).

  1. From Peter Paul and Mary’s version of The Cruel War:                        I’ll tie back my hair,                                                                                                       men’s clothing I’ll put on                                                                                           I‘ll pass as your comrade,                                                                                                as we march along                                                                                                           I’ll pass as your comrade                                                                                                 no one will ever know                                                                                           Won’t you let me go with you?                                                                                   No, my love, no

  1. And a traditional song, though not about the Civil War, was sung by Sally Rogers on her first album The Unclaimed Pint: “(When I Was) A Fair Maid”, lyrics here.

For what event have you been willing to “cross-dress”?

 

108 thoughts on “The Cruel War”

  1. I’ve already told my tie story here – the only other would be the couple of times I’ve done Halloween as Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter), khaki shorts, shirts, boots and a green upholstery foam crocodile that goes over my shoulders!

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      1. Bookstore days. Wore one of wasband’s tie to work (w/ denim skirt and vest). Re-arranging big shelving unit of books at front of store. Got tie caught between books without realizing it. Stood up and caused an avalanche of books. Never wore tie again.

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  2. Has anyone ever read “Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy” about four women who dress up like men and rob a mail train because the Italian authorities would never suspect four women of doing such a tbing? A fun book.

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  3. isnt it funny that for a woman to cross dress is no big deal today and for a man to cross dress it is another matter all together.
    one like it hot is rated the number one funniest movie of all time with jack lemon and tony curtis as the funniest . tootsoe and mre doubt fore are on the list too. they noted that on tcm the other day and i found it interesting. yentel and victor victoria are up there as good flicks too.
    i have a couple of cross dressed or maybe cross gender guys/ ladies in the meetups i attend. one is an architect who wears very high heels and fashionable attire and the other is a guy who reminds me of emmit on andy of mayberry who runs the appliance store and the dresses her wears remind me of aunt beas housedresses. he is a carpet cleaner. he was talking about how hard it is to grow his business and as i asked delicately about how people may be receptive to his presentation and he realized i thought he was going out in hs dress to get busienss and said that no he didnt dress like this for business only for going out..

    it must be hard.

    i have dressed up in drag for halloween and maybe one other time it is not pretty. the beard is a distraction and makes whatever i wear look insincere. i just dont know what to do. the open collar look with my chest hair complimenting the beard seems to be best but only certain styles are conducive to more than two or three buttons undone and i have to be careful that it doesnt become a cheesey come on.

    i do like the long hair and a wig is the only way that going to happen again anytime in the future so thats a plus to the concept.

    thnks bir for the fun way to start april fools day

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    2. I’ve always thought that attire is the one place where women have so much more latitude than men. I would really like to see the day where men don’t feel the need to strangle themselves to be “officially” dressed up. And that’s NOT because of my bad tie experience, it’s because I think suits/ties are BORING!!!

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      2. suits are not boring. they are like picture frames. the materila the style the width of the lapel the buttons (i have always thought i should go into the art button business. a typical clothing article becomes exquisite with my art buttons think f the variations on a shirt let alone a jacket or a coat. if you want to make an unframed statement you cna wear a hawainn shirt or an irish knot cardigan assuming its warmenough or cool enough.
        micro fiber vs cashmere it goes on and on the weave the weight the colors and hues of the knit. shirts and pants are kind of boring if you ask me.
        the canadian tuxedo is the epitome of boring blue jeans and a blue work shirt

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        1. Love good tailoring and fine haberdashery. S&h has a haircut at Heimie’s today. Wish I could go too.

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        2. heimes is the last great haberdasher in town. ties suspenders fun shoes belts walking sticks to go with hats and great sports coats
          top. coats and gloves.
          if you want to dress you certainly can. its just so easy to wear yesterdays jeans snd a wrinkled cotton button down

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  4. I’ve always assumed that gender stereotypes explain why women can cross-dress more freely than men. Men are valued more than women in our culture (even in soccer!). A woman who tries to look like a man gains respect. A man who tries to look like a woman loses respect.

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      2. Aside from the notable lack of imagination, it’s interesting to observe the thing that those men were most anxious to proclaim they weren’t. They could have come as trees or anteaters or clouds. I think my first inclination would have either been towards a pair of Zubaz and a wifebeater sleeveless t-shirt or maybe a pope’s regalia.

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  5. i have two cats and have had them for years and can not remember which is which. i have had cat people come over and ask my wife which is which and she tells them and they say oh yes that is what i thought . i cant tell male from female behavior in cats. makes me wonder if i may be dealing with preconceived ideas about humans

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  6. my son went to school one day when he was 3 or so in a dress when i was out of town and his granpa took him. he just wanted to wear a dress that day. it didnt come up again but was a topic of conversation at the daycare for an afternoon.

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      1. When I was teaching day care, we had a box of dress-up clothes. I remember one day in particular a couple pre-school age boys trying on the silky nightgowns and other women’s clothing. But they quickly got them off before parents arrived.

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  7. Another favorite Joel story I’ve probably told before (Joel is my deceased son, 1981 – 2007). When he was three we went to the wedding of his friends’ (Brendan and Molly’s) mom. Up until then, these children had both always worn pants and t-shirts, etc., when they got together. During the wedding, he tugged on my arm and whispered rather loudly, “MOM, Molly is a GIRL!”

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    1. Joel will be moving to Winona, too.
      We drive over that way once a year. Except right now Sandy is sick every day. Hoping a new procedure they will try after her surgery will settle her down.

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  8. I am ashamed to say this, but never, not once. I would remember if I had, although I always felt a bit like a cross-dresser in full makeup on stage. I once directed four muscular big young men in drag. They were not the actor types, very self-conscious at first and then really got into it and had a ball.

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  9. Someone in my family recently went through a difficult divorce. His four-year-old son felt as if he’d lost his mother, although she still maintains some contact with him. For months this kid dressed as a woman and clomped around in his mother’s shoes. I assume that was his way of trying to keep her in his life.

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    1. I was going to write about Leo’s preoccupation with wearing his mom’s clothing during the first year of my son’s divorce. Truth be told, I worried a bit that he might be transgender and how that would make his life so difficult. He’s now five and only dresses like a typical little boy.

      Brad Pitt and Angelina have two seven year old identical twins, one of whom only dresses like a boy. She’s clearly transgender and her parents have no issue at all with it. Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned.

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      1. I am just concerned that parents who want attention and notoriety don’t start saying their children are transgender when they are not.

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        1. I am guessing you speak from experience, Renee, but I’m more concerned about parents who think other parents are “bad parents” for allowing and supporting their children in their non-conforming gender identity.

          Sorry folks, this one strikes too close to home.

          I’ve sat through school board meetings for months now hearing some pretty vile stuff being spewed by such people and we are nowhere near done.

          If you have followed the current MN bathroom bill that looks like it has mercifully died in committee and heard the parents from a “public charter school”, that’s who we are dealing with.

          Cross dressing is one thing and is a pivotal plot point in many fine plays (which our students are no longer permitted to perform in, I wish I were kidding), gender identity is about who you are. I don’t pretend to fully understand it, but I do get that people should not have their identity determined by someone else.

          I cannot imagine people signing up to go through what the family I know has been through just to be trendy or something.

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        2. Thank you MIG. It has made me heartsick to read about the mess in St. Paul for that poor child – and the bigger mess at our state capitol. Dressing in drag is one thing (and I’ve known a couple folks who have done drag for more than just the odd Halloween party or part in a play), being transgender is another. Growing up feeling like you are in the wrong body, the wrong skin…I can’t begin to imagine. Makes me hope for the future that our next generation seems more willing to accept a non-binary definition of gender.

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        1. it always makes me wonder how it would feel to the homophobes if when the world changes in the next 20 or 30 years they were told they were in the wrong and if they did not get into same sex relationships they would be made illeagal. the law rules and they should abide. how would that feel to them of so little tolerance. a new understanding of the scripture reveals that they were wrong and the others were right. it has been proclaimed. does that make ok then? will they become other because it is declared true? isnt that what they are asking of others?

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  10. I have only “officially” cross-dressed when I dressed as an eccentric friend for a Halloween party. Unofficially, I probably cross dress every time I put on clothes for feeding animals, especially in the winter. As noted by several posts today, women dressing like men is acceptable…respectable as a way of paying tribute to male power.

    I have had more than one male friend who cross dresses/longs to be a woman in private and it is quite troubling for at least on of them who is in a marriage with a wife who doesn’t want it to be so.

    There is a movie with Jessica Lange that explores the conflict and confusion when her husband announces he will wants to dress like a woman all the time. I forget the name, but I remember it as well done.

    Have any of you seen The Danish Girl? If so, what do you think?

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      1. If they will have 100 of them, once they get them, request #802 will come up pretty quickly. Only one week of checkout for DVDs. Not that everyone picks up their copy promptly or returns it on time, but it won’t be a terribly long wait. I’ve been over #1,0000 on a few things and even with less than 100 copies of the item, my turn comes within a reasonable amount of time. (Of course, once I order something, I usually forget about it until there it is one day. What I hate is when I pick it up and can’t for the life of me remember why I thought it would be interesting.)

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        1. Oh, that’s right. I always forget that the DVDs are only a week – I was doing my calculations based on the 3 week timetable.

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  11. I can’t remember any time that I cross-dressed. I should give it a try sometime. My mustache makes me a poor candidate for doing a full blown job of cross-dressing.

    I don’t have much contact with transgender individuals who cross-dress. There was a guy in a group I belonged to who dressed as a female part of the time and who I assume is transgender. I had a little trouble being comfortable with his two ways of dressing. I’ve heard some transgender people talk about the problems they are facing. I believe they do have a hard time dealing with an excessive amount of unfair treatment directed toward them.

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  13. I steer clear of events that require me to dress in a certain way or to dress creatively. As someone who thinks wearing a new pair of tennis shoes is “dressing up,” you can bet that any event that requires me to think carefully about what I will wear is not my cup of tea. My usual outfit is jeans and a t-shirt, or, in cold weather, jeans and long sleeve pullover with a flannel shirt or sweater/sweatshirt. Anything dressier than that is anxiety-producing.

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  14. I think I mentioned before that one Halloween when I was in graduate school, I was dressed like a strawberry and had to take a psychotic client to the emergency room.

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  15. I’ve often worn men’s clothing, but I don’t think I could pull off a deception like Ms. Clayton’s. I have small hands, and you can’t really conceal that unless the weather’s really cold.

    As a kid I wore skirts and dresses to school every day. It was a requirement up through 6th grade. Kinda hard to believe now.

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    1. Me too….actually through high school and into the time I taught in the mid 60s. One of my colleagues had an ongoing “discussion” with the principal of one school about how difficult it was to get down on the kids level in early primary grades when in a skirt or dress. And how much more practical it would be to be able to wear slacks….not even jeans. Now…do teachers wear anything but jeans? I haven’t been in a school lately…

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    3. When I hear stories about women masquerading as men, I always wonder how they pull it off with things they can’t fake – the sound of their voice, general size, no ability to grow a beard, and, uh, how about when it’s time to go potty? I’m assuming that in a war, you don’t always get your own stall.

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      2. If you are referring to the women masquerading as men in the Civil War, you have to remember that the soldiers tended to be very young. I read somewhere that the median age was 19. That means a lot were younger. Women who presented themselves as men used youth to explain their higher voice and lack of beard. Also, the signifiers of gender were different. Just wearing trousers would be enough to take you most of the way toward masculinity.

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  16. I’d hate to be a man in this life. Their such limited clothing options seem as constrained as the imperative not to show feelings. It makes sense to me that a part of them would yearn to have the freedom women do in changing up their appearance, whether this means sneakers to heels, hairstyle, sweatsuits to dresses, etc. Their clothing choices represent the cultural edict to adhere to convention – male convention, that is. Imagine going to work day after day, year after year, with almost no latitude whatsoever about clothing? Different color suits, ties, and shirts must be boring. I could wear only a sweatsuit 364 days a year, but I know that at least I have countless choices of apparel.

    By the way, there are many other reasons I’d hate to be male 🙂

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  17. Thanks, BiR, for picking up on the story about Frances Clayton. Two things caught my attention when I read it.

    First, while it seemed odd that a woman would pretend to be a man so she could go to war, the story mentioned that “almost 400” women did just that in the Civil War! Ponder for yourself why so many women did that in that war (and generally have not done that in subsequent wars).

    Second, I was amused at what Clayton did to convince fellow soldiers she was a man. She swore, chewed tobacco, got drunk and generally behaved like “a rascal.” My oh my! That’s what being male is all about?

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    1. It is true that many women went to fight in the Civil War – I’ve read a couple of different books on the subject. Wondering if the Civil War felt more personal than the ones before, since we were fighting each other?

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      1. I’ve given this some thought, vs. You are probably right that this war was more personal. That might have especially been true in the Confederacy. It also happened at a time when war was romanticized in a way it later was not. The two world wars of the 20th century enjoyed popular support, but might have seemed less “personal.”

        I also suspect it was easier for women to do masculine things in the 19th century. Most women lived and worked on farms, doing work not so different from what their husbands did. Women as well as men were pioneers. They killed chickens and butchered hogs and did other tasks that women didn’t often do in the first half of the 20th century. Fancy, highly limited notions of what it was to be feminine were more prevalent in 1950 than in 1850, which might have made it easier for women to jump gender roles.

        My third thought is that women in the 20th century were given civilian roles that allowed them to promote the war effort without toting a rifle. Especially in WW 2, Rosie the Riveter and the heroines of the WAC saw themselves helping to win the war.

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    2. I had meant to include that statistic – glad you mentioned it, Steve.
      I think women probably DID participate in other wars, but not as many, and not documented (?) – see the lyrics to the Sally Rogers song…

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    4. Steve, it’s no big mystery why women didn’t join up “in subsequent wars” – the military started requiring physicals. They also excluded African Americans from the military during World War I.

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      1. I misspoke – African Americans were not excluded from the military, but excluded from serving with their white counterparts. The Selective Service Act of 1917 was about keeping the riff-raff out.

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      2. You are right. It’s pretty obvious, in fact. Military service was surprisingly freelance and unprofessional early in the Civil War. Some units were organized by entrepreneurs. Some had their own uniforms. All that was organized and bureaucratized in WW 1 and later.

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    5. Some of the women became soldiers to be close to their husbands. For some, it was more of a gender identity issue and the war was actually an opportunity for women who identified as male to escape the expectations of family and small claustrophobic communities.

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  19. I am sitting in a coffee house killing time befor I pick up Sandra. In the next table over is a college girl with mannish glasses, but aren’t in style? She has a style of short hair like I see many college men wear. She has on bibs and a short sleeve red blouse that looks like a man’s. She is wearing a loosely tied tie in bright colors. She looks sweet, charming, adorable. Her boyfriend looks like all men his age, but handsome. One of the ways women have an advantage in our messed up culture, bless them, and her.

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    1. It sometimes seems to me that women have a big advantage over men when they choose to cross-dress. A man dressing as a woman is sure to look more feminine. A woman dressing as a man (like the college girl you describe) can often look cuter feminine than if she dressed as women do. It is possible for some women to look manly in men’s attire, but it is also possible for some women to actually look more feminine when their glasses or clothing is masculine.

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  20. Pardon me for talking too much.

    Some of you may have picked up on the fact I study TV commercials as windows that help us percieve social change. A Tide commercial recently caught my eye. As it starts, you might expect it to promote a shopworn cultural cliche. But then it veers. This man, so comfortable in his role as laundress for his family, is proud of using a detergent that gets his daughter’s princess outfit clean. Imagine the same commercial if it were shot as a mom promoting Tide. Times have changed.

    http://jezebel.com/5990826/refreshing-tide-commercial-manages-not-to-rely-on-goon-dad-caricature-for-a-change

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    1. Why can I not ever proof my posts? It should be perceive, not percieve, and the post above is all hacked up. Sorry. Do I get to claim an exemption because I’m a senior citizen? Didn’t think so!

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  22. Found this paragraph today in Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”: He was the only Negro I knew, except for the school principal and the visiting nurses, who wore matching pants and jackets. When I learned that men’s clothes were sold like that and called suits, I remember thinking that somebody had been very bright, for it made men look less manly, less threatening and a little more like women.

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  23. Hi–

    I remember as a kid, being curious about mom’s undergarments and trying a few things on. But beyond that, nope… I guess I never had an opportunity or a need to cross dress. Never got cast in that part of a show either.

    We went to our first drag show last weekend. It was a blast! And I’m telling you, some of those guys made good looking women!
    (I hope that doesn’t come across as sexist; I don’t mean it that way.)

    Last chance for straw– if I haven’t heard from you, now’s the time.
    strawmanben at G mail (dot) com

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    1. Don’t know if anyone is close enough to my neighborhood to be interested, but there is an event next weekend:

      Straw Bale Gardening
      Saturday April 9th at 1 pm
      Riverview Library, 1 East George Street, St. Paul 55107
      Taught by Randy Latzig from the Buffalo Country Store

      Randy Latzig will take the class through different set ups of straw bale gardening. You will learn about conditioning the bale before planting, seed and plant selection and watering and care of your straw bale garden.

      The class is free and open to the public and is brought to you by
      Growing West Side and the Riverview Library.

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  24. The s&h and his girlfriend are pretty involved in the school GSA, and there is an annual day if solidarity with the trans community when students can wear the uniform corresponding to the opposite of their gender.

    First time the s&h borrowed a skirt because his girlfriend challenged him on it and he felt a little odd. This year he put on that skirt with his running tights and thought nothing of it (reminded me of the Utilikilts at Irish Faire).

    Funny story about outsiders and gender identity. We often go out for Sunday brunch and occasionally go to the same place for dinner, so we encounter waitstaff that don’t know us. S&h used to wear his blonde curls longer and one night the waitress bounced up to the table with “what will you ladies have?” We had that experience a couple places and always found it humorous.

    Now the beard has come in and he gets shorn (part choice, but also better inside the fencing helmet and for running), it doesn’t happen.

    But last New Year’s Eve, he and the girlfriend went to the same restaurant for dinner. Waiter biffs up to the table with “what’ll you fellows have?” (Girlfriend doesn’t wear skirts, likes to wear ties and trousers and this fall got her waistlength hair cut super short)

    They found this hilarious.

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    2. i was never mistaken for a girl but was often asked “what you girls will have” by mean spirited rednecks who thought it was funny to demean.
      small people make themselves feel superior by any means at hand and the difficulty in letting people be who they want to be is a problem telling of the challanges of maknkind. they found evidence of a bushwhacking of a tribe by another in the earliest civilization possible recently. they thought that poeple wouldnt fight if there was nothing to fight over territorially. they have revised that to say people are at heart a fighting spiecies. too bad but explains the state of the state today in way to logical a set of step by step sequences. lets play human kids… watch out what you wish for.

      dress up like a republican

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  26. OT: I mentioned above a coffeehouse. As I was leaving I saw a poster for an Eliza Gilkyson concert in town for a week from tomorrow. So I bought us tickets. Sandy suffers from my FM. I am hoping this is not a concert which will result in too much noise. But looking froward to it.

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    1. Depends. If it’s Rock Bend, and the weather’s warm, it will be shorts and a Rock Bend T-shirt, accessorized with a straw hat.

      Saw Eliza Gilkyson there. You’ll enjoy it, Clyde.

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  28. OT – Here’s a plea for help posted by Krista on her Facebook page:
    “Good morning, friends and family! I’m looking for help moving some furniture on Saturday, April 30, and again on Monday evening, May 2. My furniture has been scaled back a lot but some of it is heavy. It should be easy to get it out of my house on 4/30 but will be harder to move it in the new place on May 2 due to stairs. I’ll provide food and beverage. I hope you can help!?”

    Unfortunately, my back is so bad that I can’t lift anything heavy, but I’ll try to find some other way to be helpful.

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  29. I need to look professional when I testify in court as an expert witness, so I usually wear a skirt, a plain sweater, and my pearls, the only necklace I own. Since I know all the judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys in town i could probably wear overalls and no one would care, but I try to look like I know what I am talking about.

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  31. I’m a little late in the discussion in general…I have worn a tux, I have worn a man’s suit jacket and tie more than once – not necessarily to cross dress, but just because I liked the clothes and how they looked. When I built sets, dressing “like a woman” would have just been impractical (see Cynthia’s notes about about working with animals – scene shops involve slightly less manure and more sawdust, but the practicalities are similar).

    Where I really find I have to cross gender lines is in my manner. When I was building sets, I felt I had to go along with the crude, often sexual humor to get along. Being able to talk tools and cars and such made it easier to be accepted. Ditto now working with the mostly male-dominated software world – only now the talk is nerdier and tends to Nerf guns over power tools. It’s a balancing act – being forceful comes off differently from my woman’s mouth than it would were I a man. I can easily see where in a world that defines gender by what you wear and what you do that a few things like cutting your hair, putting on different clothes, playing poker and spitting would allow you to “pass.” It is more than the clothes – it’s the attitude, how you carry yourself, how you interact that are really where you get into true gender line-crossing.

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    1. yes it is and there is a big difference between the nerd mens world and the sports guys, alpha male guy world. i entered the nrd guys world a couple of years ago and found it works way better if you back of rhe guy stuff a bit they dont respond well to the leadership based on machismo based world i am accustomed to. i always found a way to do aversion of that i was comfortable with. kind of cross dressing within the gender but with the nerds its better to learn how to talk and communicate without the spitting and cusrsing and acting like a guy. they seem to belong to a club of their own and you do best finding the level playing ground to deal with them on too.
      as a sales guy i have alwyays been a chameleon that crawls inside the customers head to figure out how to phrase the presentation to the needs as perceived. by the recipient.
      i had a massage therapist years ago ask if i was in a masculine or a feminine mood.. i hadn’t though in those terms before but there are times when i am in a feminine frame of mind and others when i m not.

      what was the tom hanks tv show? he and dan ackroids wife? .

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    2. Your comment interests me, Anna. I can relate to the way “being able to talk tools and cars” would help conversation. I can’t figure out how you felt about the crude sexual humor. Did sharing that sort of thing make you feel included and comfortable? Or was it unpleasant?

      As a freelance writer for outdoor sports magazines, I took many hunting and fishing trips. Quite a few men enjoy men-only groups because that makes it easier for them to indulge in sophomoric, crude humor. I was the opposite. I began to seek out groups that included women, as their presence elevated the level of the conversations. I once wrote a moderately famous article about why I preferred to hunt and fish with groups that included women.

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      1. Honestly Steve, my answer is “it depends.” On the one hand, there was a level of the humor that greased the conversational skids and helped me feel more included. There was another level that could make me feel uncomfortable (heck, fart jokes are something I generally don’t find funny). Lately, in my increasing middle age, I have felt a lot more comfortable calling out what feels too gender exclusionary or will put a humorous twist on it and throw it back at the instigator (again, it helps to be able to talk tools…if it gets to “boys club” I can throw that in – it often stops the nerds in their tracks when they get too far down a path as a way of showing that what they are doing is in the same vein as “tools and trucks” conversations…or offering to talk tools with a guy when he finds himself surrounded by women having far too stereotypical female conversation…). What got funny, for me, was when men weren’t quite sure what to think of a woman being able to talk about rebuilding a carburetor so made assumptions on who I might date…and then I swapped to some sort of humor that clearly indicated I was, in fact, straight…um…yeah. Made ’em squirm. And perhaps realize what they had one and how I had turned it on them. Generally this lead to a “yep, she can hold her own” and kept the crudeness level somewhere in the tolerable range.

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      2. i enjoy the heck out o both and each have their place. i felt so sorry for robert smith the vikings running back 15 years ago who hated the football mentality because they made fun of him for being interested in astronomy and reading books. he couldn’t wait to get out. then he got out and found out the world outside football is no cakewalk either. he is currently a football analyst who talks with moderately intelligent people about football and probably can read al the books he wants on his off time.
        i love talking art and literature but sports is good, world hunger is a topic of interest, i used to be surprised in school that i enjoyed every subject i ever studied. im luck that way.

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        1. Part of my job involves special lighting or effects for the Homecoming football game. The amount of college age testosterone flooding the field puts me off. I am so far out of my comfort zone at these events.

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