Our reading group was doing Hamlet when we came upon Osric, a stooge of The King, who we concluded among other faults was a fop.We then looked at contemporaneous examples of "fophood". I thought of this example later in the day that I might have related at the time. Years ago the pianist and I went to Maui for the first time in our lives and it was so splendid I decided I needed to dress for the occasion in a more appropriate way. I bought a seersucker jacket with white and blue checks, lemon yellow trousers, a knitted yellow tie with white dress shirts and blue and white saddle shoes. I can't remember the socks but they would have been as memorable. I was splendiferous in Maui and blended in with the gentlemen at the old Lahaina luau. When we returned to Victoria and my first day back to work I came to the hospital in my new garb ready for bear. Of course in those days of the 60's everyone in practice wore the uniform, grey or blue suit, drab tie, shined black shoes. It was uniform! I had no inkling of the shock of my singularity of the appearance that day in that place in that era . My favorite operating room nurse said to me, " You look like a dressed up Bulgarian!" Someone else asked me if the jacket was a foreign country's flag. I retreated to the house from then on and dressed in grey or blue. I wanted to belong. I didn't want to be a fop. It is like real estate; location, location, location.
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