Excellence

From Google: “Choate Rosemary Hall (often known as Choate) is a highly selective, private college-preparatory boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut. Its history, academic influence, and reputation make it one of the leading schools in the United States.”

To put it simply, your kind probably isn't too welcome there.

**

Once he finally got his PhD from Vanderbilt with two weeks to spare, my friend figured it was time to get a “real” job as his last job was being drunk and stoned in Bermuda. Prior to that he was teaching kids and being drunk and stoned in GooseBay, Labrador in the frozen north of Canada. He has the distinction of being “second best” at something at Vandy, and that is he came in second for the “longest time it takes to finish a PhD.”

I ask: “Who won first place?”

“I don't know....someone more unmotivated than me” he answers.

After applying as a professor at various universities and colleges, he found an opening for a history professor at Choate. He figured it would be a nice start to a career and to boot, Choate wasn't too far from Plymouth when compared to say working in Urbana/Champagne in Illinois where he did a stint before the Labrador gig.

“I was driving at the time a real shitty looking MGB. It was a great car, always ran but looked like the pits. It was dented, rusted in spots and the paint had faded to a dull pasty color. The day of the interview at Choate I had put on my best suit. The problem was that I had spent the last few years in GooseBay Labrador and Bermuda and neither occupation required any sort of dress code.”

He goes on..

“My suit was polyester. The pants sort of had a bell bottom flange to them but it was clean, in style, 70s mind you and it did fit. But I knew it may look “low-budget” for an interview at a place like Choate. No matter, it was all I had and I wore it anyway.”

“I find the building the interview is at and I see this guy standing outside of it. He had on one of those tweed jackets with elbow patches, combed Brill creamed hair and he was holding a pipe at the moment. When I pulled up, the guy looked at the car and me as if I came from Neptune...the look on his face was astonishment.”

“I get out and ask him where I could find a Mr. Steerling...there was a pregnant pause and he finally says that he was. I shake his hand and tell him I'm his interview...the history one. He then gives another peculiar look and finally composes himself and invites me in.”

B. tells me he knew the interview wasn't going to go well from the first second he saw the guy's face.

“After all the usual questions about my background and qualifications, the guy then tries to discourage me from pressing this opening further.”

“Mr. B, we here at Choate, we strive for a certain, how would you say...a certain impression, a vision and our students expect only the best, as their parents do as well. All of our professors realize this pedigree and carry themselves with a Choate Pride of service to this nation's best...to the ones who have through this nation's history have risen extraordinarily through the generations.”

“You mean inherited money?” my friend retorts.

“The guy then starts tripping over his own words, swearing that Choate isn't about snobbery nor elitism, it's about 'excellence.' The guy stumbles poorly and I answer him finally.”

“So to clarify, you mean excellently inherited money?”

“I kill the interview right there by reaching across his mahogany desk to shake his hand and thank him for his time. I go out, fire up my loud MBG and see the guy looking at me from his window.”  

This is Choate's lunchroom. There's no Lunch Lady Doris slapping school pizza on your plastic tray here.  Perhaps Emiril Lagasse is chained to the stove, having orders shouted at him by impatient brats, who then toss escargot snails at him for fun too.