You may or may not have noticed that Irving R. Levine has just retired after a career of some 45-50 years with NBC. He started out as a young general reporter, and went through various phases until he became the network's principal economics specialist and one of the most prominent reporters in the business.
Well, on October 29th he appeared as a guest on another network, and all of the interviewers put on bow ties over their regular neckwear, even the lady. In honor of Mr. Levine, of course, for he is known world wide as a leader of the Free and Universal Bow-Tie Wearers Association. (I know that this is a genuine organization, for I just invented it myself). Were it not for him and his small but select band of followers, the bow would perhaps by now have been extinct - nearly - a victim possibly of unplanned obsolescence. One does make an exception, naturally, for the white bow with tails or the black one with a dinner jacket or tuxedo. These two varieties are still alive and breeding. (A white tie with a tux or a black one with tails is an abomination in the sight of the mavens of Savile Row).
But here we speak of the ordinary bow worn daily in full view of man and beast.
There have been some illustrious wearers of bows; I won't try to list them all, but we must surely remember Winston Churchill and Harry Truman - and Irving R. Levine.
That Hyman Rudoff wears bows too has nothing to do with fame. It's sheer ingrained habit. Once upon a time you could distinguish a New Englander by the fact that he wore a bow tie. That was before the homogenization of America, but that's another story.
Now it happened that my professor of organic chemistry back in about 1930 was a New Englander, instantly recognizable by his speech - and his tie.
When I got to know him better, I had the temerity to ask him why he wore bow ties. Now how could a man admit that it was mere conformity? Or perhaps that it was a kind of uniform in Boston? No, he gave me a good reason for his strange attire.
"A four-in-hand tie sweeps the workbench and can get into the 'soup.' It could ruin your research". Now that's serious, far worse than getting stains on the tie at the dinner table.
So pretty soon, being always open to good ideas (at least then. I may be a little less permeable nowadays). I went out and bought a bow tie. In fact there were two types, single-ended and double-ended, and I bought one of each. Luckily my career at the University was long enough for me to learn how to tie both varieities. I have forgotten only the single-ended knot. The other is with me still. Solid, too; I don't need a mirror. So there!
Anyway, I continued to wear bows almost exclusively thereafter.
I think this practice nearly ruined my career. You see, the uniform of the engineer (I was classed among engineers at work. I don't know whether they felt the presence of an alien body very keenly or not) was a white shirt and a regular four-in-hand tie. I wore the white shirt, but was sadly out of uniform with a bow tie and a non-matching jacket. I bet that my boss must have pegged me as an eccentric.
Anyway, the years went by. I lost a lot of hair and even more hair color, but I accumulated a fair collection of bow ties. It used to be easy. Most haberdasheries sold bow ties, and in some of the big cities there were tie stores that showed a large selection. But they too succumbed to the changing mores, and by the time I retired, in Chicago, it was virtually impossible to find a new bow tie anywhere. Unless of course you were willing to use a snap-on tie - a few of those are around still. Not many, but a few.
You must understand that old-time users (addicts?) look down on the snap-on type. Sheer snobbery, of course, but one has to have something to feel superior about.
Anyway, here I am, fresh from looking at Irving R. Levine with his crisply elegant tie, contemplating my old long-service retainers, and wishing for some new and vital source of beautiful bows like Levine's lovelies.
Besides, bows always used to cost less than the others. Maybe they still do, if one can find a member of this almost-extinct species at all.
Ah, Irving, what a nostalgic longing you have aroused in me for those fair wings of long ago!
(Retired industrial chemist, veteran of interesting
nuclear times at Los Alamos, active writer and
photographer, Hyman Rudoff, "Rudy", lives in Cambridge
and dresses very well, indeed.)
April 28, 1996 Hyman Rudoff The Shore Journal
How do you TIE those things, anyway ?