Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Adolescent Trad or…How to Dress a Son

LFG’s middle school graduation ceremony—year before last—I’m there as always. Like I’ve said a thousand times before…I’m not looking for a fathering merit badge or medal, I’m just trying to do everything that my dad didn’t. And the bar comparatively is really, really low. I don’t remember my dad ever showing up for anything.

Society has lowered or allowed the bar to be lowered on scores of fundamental things that make our world slightly less pleasant. General courtesies or the evaporation of them represent the canary in the coalmine of bar lowering, societal sloppiness. I’m talking about genuine, sincere behaviors that demonstrate respect for ourselves and one another. Not obsequious courtesies like the ones poured on so condescendingly by Southern Junior Leaguers.

Courtesy and good deportment should be gender, race, and age independent…with the exception of adults needing to show our younger charges how it’s done. I’ve struggled to reconcile LFG’s deserved desire for independence against my deeply encoded, rote behavior of opening and closing her car door as well as allowing her to enter buildings before me, courtesy of, again, my door-holding-open Pavlovian damn self. The twelve year old lens through which she sees my efforts conveys hovering daddy as opposed to chivalrous gentleman. Thank goodness that we’ve yet to have the inevitable battles regarding what she wears. Yes, I know it’s coming.

And what we wear counts. I paraphrase G. Bruce Boyer loosely when I say that it’s silly to think that what we wear doesn’t convey things about us and what we believe and how we are likely to behave. Oh lordy, that’s an unfair broad-brushstroke I know. But on balance, I’ve written about not judging books by their covers where I’ve admitted that those nose bolts and those ear lobe expander things that kids install in incrementally larger diameters to make even larger and more ghastly lobe holes kinda scare me. But I also said that I will always give everyone till proven otherwise, the benefit of the doubt regarding their character and integrity, even if their sartorial and body adornment choices scare the dooky out of me. Surely this is two-way traffic as well. Trust me. I’ve met plenty of well groomed, button downed, ultra-traditional…assholes.

“What you are hovers above and thunders so—that I can’t hear what you say to the contrary” rather sums up the deportment and courtesy thing for me. I’d just amend it a bit to read “…what you say and what you’re wearing…” If you’re a turd, it makes no difference if you’re Flusser or Pierced Goth…head to damn toe.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so gobsmacked over this kid. When I was his age all kids were scrubbed and swathed appropriately for momentous occasions like chorus productions, awards functions, and church. But this kid knocks it out of the park on all fronts! I don’t know his parents but I’d like to. I wanna know who gives this kid his instruction. Not just because he’s so neat and well put together but because there are jaunty bits of personal style fuzziness already manifesting.

Gingham button down and thick, chunky rep stripes. BAM!

Well cut flat-front khakis that preclude this young man from looking like a Thom Browne acolyte. Well done mom and dad.

And of course—loafers…the Meryl Streep of shoes. They thrive in any role…especially when the wearer is ten years old. And socks that offer just a bit of baby fuzziness courtesy of a piccolo argyle splash.

I’ll say it again. Well done young man and well done mom and dad. I’d a been impressed if the bar was still as high as it used to be and where it shoulda remained. 

But I was more impressed and smitten by this gal, the young lady sitting a few rows behind him.

Onward. On the road.

ADG II

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Red Wing Boots

I bought a pair of  Red Wing boots way before either the manufacturer up in Red Wing Minnesota or their retail suppliers across the country ever thought of their goods as fashion. Red Wing’s lineage is quintessentially American, martial and blue collar. Only recently have they dipped their steel toe into the mosh pit of adjectives that could be anything but true to their heritage.

Red Wings and Trad-Ivy Tuesday? How? Why? Why not? I don't know. Other than the fact that Barrie Ltd. ... neighbor to J. Press in New Haven, sold what surely was a Red Wing made boot at one time.

There was a slaughter in Europe known as World War I and the facts show that virtually one hundred percent of our soldiers, whether they died with their boots on or wore them on their return home, were wearing Red Wing boots.

But I reckon that Red Wing’s most enduring legacy is in spec-precise, steel toed, static dissipative, safety shoes and work boots. Men, mostly I suppose, who over the years had to shod themselves in boots or shoes that passed specific performance rigor, would usually get them from a Red Wing supplier. Think equipment.

Certainly I didn’t in 1989 nor do I now, need a pair of boots that pass all of the industrial or martial rigor that Red Wing so proudly delivers on. But I wanted a pair. I’d been out in Orange, Virginia with my best buddy JTS where his daddy has a farm and just enough land for inside the Beltway frustrated wanna be country boys to piddle around, drink, shoot at shit and shoot the shit before heading back inside the Beltway vortex.

He had on Red Wings and I had on L.L. Bean hunting boots. Bean stuff rarely fails and mine probably weren’t failing on this icy-cold, raw February day. But they seemed to have mildly less stamina than JTS’s Red Wings and my toes were cold. Plus, the easiness of his no-buckles, no brogueing, no-anything Red Wings appealed to me through their silent, puncture-proof, steel-toed simplicity. Fashion and aesthetics weren’t at the time nor had it been during Red Wing’s previous eighty years, part of the Red Wing oeuvre. Matter of fact, methinks that even amidst the Minnesota nice of the Red Wing manufacturing plant, if one uttered thangs like oeuvre and fashion, an ass-whipping mighta been de rigueur. Same with using phrases like de rigueur. Shut up…you non-steel-toed, foppish ersatz-boot wearing p_s_ies.

So when I got back to Old Town I went to Monument Shoes on upper King Street. It’s long gone now. I can’t recall exactly when they relented and sold their little patch to developers who would ultimately turn the pithier and dodgy end of King Street into the posh boutique strewn strip that the lower end of the street had long since become. But Monument Shoes was there for one reason only. To supply men who did work…who did physically demanding and probably dangerous work, with the proper footgear to assure that something as silly as a dropped wrought iron pipe wouldn’t crush a foot and cost the company a man and provide the Unions more fodder for demanding better work conditions.

I can’t find any photos of upper King Street that include an exterior view of Monument Shoes. I wish I could because it would at least give you an outer glimpse of the interior that I’m a try to describe. The fella who approached me from behind the counter looked like the customers he usually served. He just as soon could have come off of shift work at the Potomac Yards railroad facility a couple of miles away. The floor was tiled in those chalky squares of worn out flooring that surely hadn’t been replaced since the 1940’s and there was no reason to. Customers came to Monument, probably with some kind of company spec-sheet in hand and perhaps even a dollar allowance from their company or Union, to buy their work boots or shoes and that’s it.

I might be imagining this but maybe not. Seems like I remember one of those Rigid Wrench girlie calendars on the wall behind the cash register. 

The interior of Monument Shoes looked like an auto parts store from the 1960’s. Practical and utilitarian with not an ounce of pretense. And I remember one of those industrial looking art deco sturdy-ass freestanding ash trays.

And the guy running the place…the only guy in the store, I’d learn in a moment, took over the store from his mom and dad and he had those World War II hula dancer forearm tattoos. Long since faded. Suffice it to say that if he was still in business today and some foppy-ass Belgian shoe wearing flâneur came in seeking a pair of authentic-artisanal-heritage rich Red Wings, the alpha energy in the store alone woulda tossed the little priss pot out on the street.

So sixty something bucks later and I walk out with my Red Wing boots. I opted not to buy the more expensive but identical version with steel toes. Just didn’t figger I’d be needing that feature. And since 1989, my Red Wings have had a precise role in the line-up. My R. M. Williams, above, are lighter in weight and  a bit leaner of line...and I consider them nice looking enough to wear with a suit to client meetings when the weather is gnarly.

My Red Wings are heavy. They’re meant to be. So I wear ‘em when the muck and mire are considerable and I wear them like the man who sold them to me suggested. A half size larger and with thick cotton socks. The self-shot above from a couple of years ago sees me with Red Wings and flannel lined L.L. Bean khakis. Chevy Chase must a been mucky and mired on this day…a day of sojourn to Polo Ralph Lauren.

I suppose it was probably 1996-ish when my then current love of my life and I were out at JTS’s country place and it was bitter cold and snowy in a rural Virginia kinda way and we decided to stay an extra couple of days. I had my Red Wings and since we were gonna stay over because of the snowy-icy, beautiful country weather, we wanted to go out in it. One problem, my gal, later LFG’s mother, didn’t have proper shoddings to frolic. So we all piled in JTS’s old Waggoneer and we head to a farm supply co-op either in Louisa or Orange. I forget. But I do remember that it was one of those classic Feed and Seed places. Nothing fancy--kinda like my great grandfather's general store above.

My uncle David had a local artist capture the Seloc railroad stop and my great grandfather's store in a watercolor years ago. Seloc is Coles spelled backwards--yes--we were an ironic bunch back then. Cole is my mom's maiden name. I'm digressing. Shut up.

But the miracle was that the farm supply place had a pair of Red Wings identical to mine in an equivalent to a woman’s size six. Bam. We are in business. Chances are after that weekend, LFG’s mother never wore them again and certainly, they were out of my sight and mind. Fast forward all of these years and I had completely forgotten the piccolo sized Red Wings and the memories of such a fun snowed-in weekend out with my friends in the country.

Till a few weekends ago. Much to my absolute over-the-top delight, LFG showed up with her mom’s Red Wings on. “Dad, everyone at school wants to know where I got these and now that I’m wearing them, mom wants them back! And Dad, nobody else has a pair.” I took great relish in all of this pre-pubescent who wears what, I wanna be unique but fit in, melange of LFGness all the while enjoying the repopulation of my memory…recollecting my trip to the long gone utilitarian Monument Shoes as well as the snowy-icy weekend that saw a car load of city slickers slink into an Ag store and discover a diminutive pair of Red Wings for a woman who then reluctantly walked the snow dusted cow pasture and bottom land of JTS’s dad’s place.

Last weekend saw LFG concerned about a blemish or two on her Red Wings so she and I saddle soaped mine and hers. Kinda of a mother-daughter in the kitchen making bread thang. But different.

I know personally, a few of you who made snarky comments on my tumblr about my LFG wearing her Red Wings and jeans to the Old Angler’s Inn for Thanksgiving dinner with me and her mom. And because we love each other, you won’t be angry at me for too long as I tell you to kiss my ass. As for the anonymous commenter who suggested that I allow LFG counsel and vetting rights to what I display when it concerns her, here’s my response to you…First, thanks for the comment. If you look at the history of my blog, you’ll see that as LFG has matured over this past year or so, there are fewer photos of her in general and even fewer uncropped shots. I hear what you say and appreciate your comments. And for those who defended me, LFG and the tumblr photo, I love you too.

Red Wing is thriving today and you can still get your government, martial or OSHA compliant shoddings from them. But alas, like the upper end of King Street, they too have given over, ever so slightly, to the posh and trendy. Something tells me though, that their Minnesota sturdy heritage will prevent them from tipping completely over to the derivative.

Onward. Red Winging it.

ADG II

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: It’s Random

I’ve never been short of ideas for stories with precise themes. You know…the ones that require editorial rigor and focus in order to have a single subject resonate. While it’s never been a strong suit of mine—focus that is—I’ve been known to tackle a singular subject with respectable outcomes. This is my long winded set-up for the fact that this little visit with you ain’t gonna be one of those.

It’s unfocused randomanalia time again, y’all. Rather like the multi-sensory deliverable of Whistler's Peacock room. Unfocused randomessence mainly because I am blessed to be covered up with work stuff that pays well but is sucking all of my time and mental disk space. I love writing about sartorial stuff but to cobble the same number of words together about pharma-biotech-diagnostics-medical device strategy is pretty much joyless. The part of my job that I love is when I’m interacting with customers or when I’m speaking to groups of clients or conference attendees—not coming home and writing case studies and summaries and follow-up. When I’m doing the live with groups or individuals thing, it’s my validation that I’m doing what I’m called to do professionally (with the exception of the only other thing that I’ve ever really done for the proverbial wage—worked after school in a Trad haberdashery—which upon semi-retirement and getting LFG into college—I might do once again). So as I’ve posited on other occasions, it’s either a random load of this-ness, or nadda. Now buckle up. Shut up.

Ivy Style at M.F.I.T. deserves and will receive next week, a blog story devoted exclusively to the exhibition, symposium and the accompanying book. But for now I’ll offer a few top-line comments. First, when Patricia Mears from F.I.T. called me over a year ago and wanted to talk about the evolving Ivy Style project as well as where the blogosphere fit in the oeuvre, I was happy to provide whatever insights I could. I’m on the record for being an ersatz-academic nerd type and could make matchbook collecting and curating an erudite endeavor. So this was right down my alley. Or does one always go up an alley? In?

But after my first phone call with the delightful Ms. Mears, (Who by the way, is well published and knowledgeable about women’s fashion and haute couture but was admittedly flummoxed about the whole Trad-Ivy-Preppy menswear thing) I thought…“Hell, if you wanna get this Ivy Style thing right, just get Paul Winston, Richard Press, Charlie Davidson, George Frazier IV and Bruce Boyer in one room and you’ll have all the literary, blood lineage and Trad-Ivy Mother Church retail stores legacies that you’ll need to land on a great version of what this was and is all about." I never needed to say it because that’s exactly what Patricia did. And with a dash of writers like Christian Chensvold and academics from around the globe, the book is and symposium will be—a home run.

I’ve yet to make it up to Gotham to see the exhibition and won’t until I head up to attend the conference but I’ve seen most of the exhibits in photos. And I’d say that just the opportunity to see Richard Press’s dad’s cashmere Prince of Wales Glen plaid sportcoat would be worth the trip.

Bottom line is that the Ivy Style exhibition catalogue is more than just another picture book. And I like most picture books. It’s a visual treat with academic heft. Like me.

So let’s shift gears inelegantly and just make a hard left turn and recap my previous five or six days. See the hands on the left? Those are the wise and learned but still learning—hands of Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, my good buddy and author of To the Manner Born blog. I had to rescue him last Thursday and my best strategy for Toad recovery-rehabilitation included the following unguents…a boutique hotel in Old Town Alexandria, cocktails, great food and finally, a lovely woman to accompany us during dinner so that both of us would come off as better looking and cultured. Mission accomplished. 

Sunday night saw me at Urbana with Dominic Casey and George Glasgow, Jr. from the George Cleverley mafia over in London. I stopped by their suite at the Fairfax Hotel on Embassy Row for a quick and vaguely conjugal visit with my next pair of Cleverley’s that are mid-way through their gestational coming about. Half of you will marvel at them while the less courageous and unimaginative remainder of my seven readers will want to check me for a fever. Until I have the time to write a story exclusively devoted to explaining every weft-warp detail of this fuzzy fabrication, I’m only gonna show you the deliberately edited and aggressively cropped photo above. Stay tuned…or not. I don’t care. And if you think I'm kidding--about the not caring part--you might need to check your own damn self for a fever. I don't care.

Oh, and this is a try-on model that the Cleverley boys had sitting about in the suite. Preening actually. The hide is carpincho…from the rodent-esque Capybara and it’s sublime. Glove leather soft and chances are you’ve a pair of gloves made of it. 2013 might see me carpinching a loafer of some sort in it. I care.

But the most delightful event between Toad Rescue and Cleverley Contrivances was my two-night visit with LFG. She came to my partially dismantled Casa Minimus and I reveled in her homework catch-up and her dance class shuttling and sleep deprivation recoup. No sleepovers, no competition from other, more appealing weekend options. It was bliss. Like the old days. You remember, don't you? It was a year ago.

My Sperry sportin' little dancer…post classes…bagging the goods for our valve closing white-trash taco party. White trash tacos are heavy on processed ingredients and the only allowable meat for the trailer park, anything but esoteric, Pawn Stars-Pickers version of the concoction is ground beef.

Add the chemical packet included in the kit. Bam. Just add a neighbor and their three year old little boy and we gotta party. Party be a noun.

This ain’t hyperbole or drama. I feel whole again...restored as a dad…after my two-night LFG weekend. And for those of you who are hyper-vigilant regarding my digs, the original upholstery on my sofa is what you see here. The decade old slipcover is currently under forensic review and fumigation. After that, it’ll probably be on ebay.

Further along the random trail…I’m always late to the technology party but this Instagram photo thing for the iPhone is new to me. And I love it. I posted the photo above on my tumblr and several of you asked again about the source of these Kilim slippers. So here you go, again. Contact Pammie Jane Farquhar at Nomad Ideas. Tell her what size shoe you wear in European sizing. She will send you a photo of what she has. You select your poison and send her your card details.

I hate shopping but I like stuff. And my stuff affinity is usually rather precise and eccentric so my dosh gets spread all over the globe. But I urge you, if you live in the D.C. area and are in need of anything Alden or Crockett and Jones or from another smattering of tasty shoemakers, please go by and see the guys at Sky Shoes on Wisconsin Avenue. There’s little in this aesthetically barren town that I buy…save for the lovely offerings at Sterling and Burke and an occasional Polo/J. Crew tchotchke. But Sky Shoes will always be my go-to place for some of the more mainstream shoddings that my anything but mainstream a_s desires. Go see them. Spend money.

This is it for now folks. I’ve gotta rejigger my to-do list and then not do it.

Onward. Sandy unimpeded. ADG II

Ps…and speaking of Sandy…an older cousin of mine—I had about twenty first cousins—gave me two Sandy Nelson albums when I got my Slingerland drums in the 6^th grade. I played this stuff over and over and over till I finally blew the speakers out of my mom’s big a_s piece of furniture stereo in the living rooms. And forty years later, my eardrums are in about the same shape.

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Sartorial Washington, D.C.

I’m probably on the record somewhere in this blog stating that living inside the Beltway—residing as I do—literally seven miles from the Hill—six miles from the White House—and not being in politics is like living in Hollywood and not being in the movie business. Washington, D.C.  is a three-button sack coat, goofball town, awash with sycophants.  

This wasn’t always my opinion. There was a time when I loved the academics of politics. I loved United States constitutional history and I loved reading the 17^th and 18^th century political and social theorists. And I worked for a U.S. Senator the summer between my junior and one of my senior years of undergrad. Then the taint wafted in. Slowly. And rather like slow growing hardwood trees, the taint; when it did unfurl, was sturdy to the point of calcification and in my mind—it was here to stay. I love the academics of the political process. I loathe politicians. My rather decided view of all this culminated when during one of my several assignments within the pharma industry, I lobbied (I love the new, perhaps more palatable characterization of special interest tactics. Instead of lobbying, it’s advocacy now) agencies, legislators and policy shapers.  

Even the most well-meaning newly elected legislator will, within their first term, become to some degree, converted…turned. The big money, the court of jesters that include staffer toadies who would literally, I kid you not, wipe a legislator’s butt if asked, are laughable on one hand and downright pitiful on the other. I moderated my Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. bias slightly after reading his diaries but only a little bit. Loyalty is good. Unwavering allegiance without question scares me. I honestly believe that Schlesinger would have done anything to or for JFK and RFK...upon demand. Ok, so perhaps he wasn't a bow tied sycophant. But he was a J. Pressed lap-dog. 

I’m ok with ego and eccentricity but I’m less disgusted with gaudy shows of power and money when one comes about it in ways other than at the people's expense. And what we have on the Hill today are not servants of this country’s citizenry and our best interests. Oh, and state legislators are just as bad or worse. My home state’s legislative branch was for years, flat-out; for sale.

So it becomes rather obvious why sartorial panache doesn’t have to be part of the success formula in political Washington, D.C. The currency here is power—not style. There are a few exceptions to the rule but unfortunately, most of the best examples are historical ones. Come to think of it, sartorial Washington has fallen from its rather low-set three-button goofball sack coat perch and has landed on less defined ground. Even the most sociopathic political opportunist woulda looked ok if they’d just had one of their butt-wiper staffers drive them over to J. Press for a couple of suits and matching accessories. Remember Jim Traficant?

And with the exception of those Ivy League keystone cop knuckle heads at the CIA who led JFK to green light the Bay of Pigs—and with their hiccup or two regarding Vietnam, we’d be better off morally and sartorially if United States foreign policy was still led by those patinated statesmen who wouldn’t dream of stepping out of the house unless swathed and shod in Chipp, J. Press, The Brethren Brooks or some visiting Savile Row tailor or cobbler. Acheson and Harriman come to mind.

The current round-up of politicians offers more bad sartorial examples than good ones so let’s look back for a moment. Texan John Tower who was anything but towering, physically…was a natty dresser. Never did I see him without well placed linen in his breast pocket. And his ties were impeccably dimpled. I wonder if some of his sartorial knack came from hanging around Savile Row while attending the London School of Economics. Tower was a great sartorial specimen even though a little too Adolphe Menjou-esque in his studied perfection.

But I’ll take too well-studied and over-groomed any day, compared to the myth busting carriage of Barney Frank. So much for the prejudicial stereotype that says gay men are fastidious, neat and aesthetically advanced.

And I’ll say that the Kennedy brothers were an exception to all of my biased generalizations regarding sartorial Washington. Why? First, it’s their genetic predisposition for big, white incisors and really thick hair. Next, it’s their wealthy father’s investment from an early age, in their wardrobes rich in London bespoke and New England Trad-Ivy content. They learned it early on and never wavered too far from it. 

If Jack and Bobby had lived long enough to see Nehru Jackets, Members Only windbreakers and Nik-Nik shirts, something tells me that they’d have taken a pass.

So what about those other Texas boys, Connolly and Johnson? I love this photo. Lyndon and John at a ceremony honoring their mentor and surrogate father, Sam Rayburn. Friends and power seekers…at each other’s expense—one in the same. Texans without hats? It seems unthinkable. 

Connolly in a three-two peak lapelled single breasted rig. Rail thin. University of Texas.

Might this be Exhibit One in the “Does a picture really say a thousand words" Trial? Texans can do hats. Most times, it’s better that non-Texan politicians eschew the urge to top. But look at the HappyWarrior in the middle. He’d a looked even less comfortable with an obligatory “when in Rome” temporarily donned Stetson but geez…could there be a greater divide…a more dichotomous gaggle than HHH and these two Texans?

LBJ’s sartorial performances weren’t ghastly but it was obvious that he didn’t give too much of a damn about clothes. He was the hang-dog, jowly, big-eared Uncle Cornpone to JFK’s Trad-Ivy everythingness. But LBJ was a master strategist and a formidable tactician. History now trends toward assigning LBJ the rightful assignation of the most legislatively capable operative to ever occupy the Senate. He was the United States Senate for almost twelve years. Don’t believe me? Read Caro’s latest LBJ volume, Passage of Power. The first forty-seven days of LBJ’s presidency saw him reach back into the Senate and pull JFK’s stalled legislation out of the proverbial shitter. He knew how to get it done. The Harvards, as he called them, who ran the Executive branch before he took over, did not. Even though he urged...begged actually...most of the Harvards to stay on for at least one year before resigning their posts, it took his tactical, pragmatic, Cornponessence to legislatively actualize what JFK's Executive had initiated.

But there were a couple of things in Caro’s latest volume that challenged me. So consistent with my pseudo-academic, mighty-erudity-ness, I wrote Robert Caro to seek some clarification. Stay tuned for the response.

Ok, I’ve wandered aimlessly here and haven’t really made much of a sartorial point. I reckon the gist of this is that I live inside the Beltway for reasons that damn sure exclude ones political, sartorial and duende-acious. I am mad about clothes. I am mad at politicians. Now let me go see about what’s left of my hair.

Onward. Having already voted, I am…ADG II...your humble servant in all things sartorially random.

Oh…one more thing. The last campaign I cared about was when LFG ran for the Presidency of Wonders, her aftercare program when she was in the 2^nd grade. I’m a strategy consultant but fearing a biased, daddy taint if I actively engaged too much in LFG’s campaign; I delegated the task to my one of my business partners and his daughter who is LFG’s age. And I've already been clear on the risk that politicians take when trying to wear hats or helmets. Candidate LFG on the other hand, rocked her little pillbox topper don'tcha think? Even her Chief of Staff, Gromit, is reasonably well topped in his rain hat.

Here’s my partner’s write up on the winning LFG campaign strategy…

*Strategy Works for Seven Year Olds

“LFG, age 7, recently decided to run for the Presidency of “Wonders”, her after school care program. When asked what she would rely upon to get votes, she paused for a moment to reflect on differentiating strategy options. Subsequently, she declared that the kids attending the aftercare program should be empowered to have more choice in the selection of activities and resources for their utilization.

LFG then concluded that she should hire the services of a strategy consultancy to assist in building a winning position around the theme of “kid’s choice”. L.T.I.  (Lauren, Tommy Inc.) was retained to craft the strategy. Lauren S___ weighed in on the “Choice” strategy and along with her associate, Tommy S___, created the following strategic playbook for LFG:

As part of the consulting arrangement with LFG for President, LTI (Lauren, Tommy, Inc.) have developed a strategy built on what LFG has said is most important to her constituency and designed to ensure her election as President of Post School Care…

Let us set the scenario…

LFG strides into the main play area and up to the Daisy Duck podium.  She turns, recognizes the Speaker of the Playground and those who were unable to attend due to nap time.  She grabs both sides of the podium and stares directly into the eyes of Madam Post School Care Facility Owner.  She pauses for dramatic effect and says…

“It’s all about making the Right Choices

The Right Choices for…

•             Healthier Snacks

•             Kid’s Toys in the Playroom

•             Frequent Field Trips

•             More Cooking Days

The CHOICE is really simple…LFG, the Right Choice!”

She stands still and relishes the applause, nods her head one time, turns and exits to the standing ovation she will so richly deserve.

LFG won a hard fought contest utilizing the well-honed “Choice” strategy created through the collaborative efforts of her team and L.T.I.”

*This is a true story. And yes, LFG won.