I have a friend named Dennis I have known for several years now. Dennis is a great guy. Our sons are the same age and he and I have coached a couple of soccer teams together. The thing about Dennis that is so great, is that he is always well put together. He dresses nicely, even when he is casual, and always looks like he came out of a Brooks Brothers magazine.
I have a hard time standing next to him, as my wrinkled khakis, rolled up sleeves, and "outdoor aesthetic" looks frumpy and shabby next to the well coiffed and immaculately tailored Dennis.
A couple of years ago I did a hunting trip for our school that Dennis attended. By the end of the weekend, we all looked dirty. Nobody had shaved. Our hunting clothes all smelled like a fire, cigars, and fragrant men, and they looked like we had slept in them. There were no women around to impress, and no children around that needed a positive male role model, so to say we looked shabby is an understatement.
Sunday morning we all headed into the swamp for one last hunt. As we are piling out of the truck donning our camoflage waders and guns, there is simply something that does not fit. Dennis looks like he just had a shower, was wearing clean clothes, and might have even shaved at some point during the festivities. He was well coiffed and manicured. He looked like he had attended a spa weekend with his wife rather than a hunting weekend with a bunch of rednecks.
The rest of us watched him genteely walk into the swamp, because he had genuinly caught our eye. We all sat in rapt silence, our mouths slightly opened. We looked at him, looked at each other, and then looked back at him. Then Trent, another dad on the trip, said, "You know. Dennis is a well groomed gentleman."
The next time I go hunting with him I am going to dress in tweeds and talk with a British accent- country side, not cockneyed- as I step out of my old school Land Rover. If I want to play the part of a wealthy land owner, I need to look it, even if I don't have any land.
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