Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )
( psst! yeah, you! anyone looking? I’m supposed to be working on the Wakefield Doctrine book… I promised that I would stop with the nearly every day Posts so that I could apply what little energy I have to putting content down on paper. Long story, that’s not important now… what is important is today is Valentine’s Day! And there is not a single person out there who writes a blog that can resist the obvious appeal of such a… a contrived, culturally supported, private interest initiated “holiday” as Valentine’s Day. So a quick, totally self-indulgent Post and then back to work… if Ms. AKH or Molly asks… tell them you haven’t seen me….)
St Valentines is the worst, most contrived and cynical, gyno-centric guy-bait(ing), toy-with-the-emotions-of-innocent-bystanders, holiday on the whole damn calendar. Of course we are all familiar with the origin of the holiday and the internet is positively turgid with countless blogs, and stories and articles that tell us all about Hallmark and the candy industry and the rest of the sordid tale of this day in February. I will not try to compete with these other more skilled and capable Commentators ( and -torinis), as I do not have the time or the ‘writing chops’ to do such a ripe topic justice. Instead, let me tell you about my most lasting memory of Valentines Day.
Third grade, parochial school (St. Imelda*) and a classroom of 25 students. The boys were required to wear blue shirts and blue ties with OLM printed on the front, fortunately ‘clip-on ties’ had been invented by this time, so easy-peasy; the girls wore the catholic school uniform, i.e. plaid skirts white shirt, socks. damn, little did I realize at that pre-pubescent time of my life how potent that little Roman Catholic Church fashion dictates would become for me and countless other men at a later stage of life. (In fact, I am feeling the tug on the cynical side of my writing-self, there is something about the whole, church-sexual-abuse-dress-the-children in outfits destined to become so hawt… lol sorry, again I lack the time or the writing skill to do justice to a topic like this… back to the story.)
So with much fanfare, Valentine’s Day arrives and we 9 year old boys and girls are told that in the afternoon, before the end of the school day, we would have time to deliver our Valentine cards to each other. ( The day before we spent ‘Art Period’ making little baskets out of construction paper and taping them to the front of our desks. These would serve as ‘mailboxes’ for the cards we would receive the next day).
The thing was, the horrible twist to this introduction to the world of love, relationships and rejection was that, the time when class stopped and we were allowed to get up and deliver our little cards was not the end of the school day! It was right after lunch… and it lasted 15 or 20 minutes…as in ‘ now return to your desks and we will continue with the afternoon’ classes’. To sit for 90 minutes staring at the contents of the container on the front of my desk… I will leave it to the Reader to decide the emotional landscape of that afternoon on a February 14th.
Anyone out there not comfortable with finishing the story, or satisfied with their conclusion of this little tale, write us a Comment! Regular Readers know that the rogers gave the biggest cards, the scotts received the most cards and the clarks delivered the most cards….secretly without the recipient ever knowing who the really fun card came from…
Now I better get back to work, before I get in trouble.
*who totally twisted my life… don’t ask
About clarkscottroger
Those frickin’ cards. The cause of much disappointment for some. And the giddiness for others. How impressionable we were at that age. Why the hell would the nuns make us do that? They most certainly didn’t get any Valentines Day cards. And if they did, well then they should not have been nuns. Or maybe….
yeah! and speaking of nuns, how come they never wore any of that plaid skirt stuff?…
but then again, the school I went to (in the story above) was run my the Sisters of Mercy who dressed in total nun fashion..the only human feature you got to see was the face (but not the hair) and the hands (usually holding a ruler which was about to make contact with some student-body-part…
My initial comment was lost when I failed to enter an email address so I will try this again. (In trying to preserve my personal information I am now trying with a no-longer-used email address.)
Bitterness will get you no where – the anticipation should’ve made those cards in the basket all that much more appealing and rewarding. I always got a respectable amount of Valentines – as a Clark? Hmmm, I think Clark-like attributes were beaten into me as a child but I am a Scott at heart. I wonder if the “I’m a saint” line will work for me…
Now where’s my hat?
…”the anticipation should’ve made those cards in the basket all that much more appealing and rewarding”
there is discussion (here at the Doctrine, among the DownSprings and FOTDs) about ‘gender differences’ as it relates to clarks, scotts and rogers. Being fairly conservative (and fearful of my ability to ‘keep up’), I have not delved to deeply into this aspect of the Doctrine. Thanks a lot! Ms P ( if thats your real name, lol) As if I did not have enough trouble with Molly and Claire asking questions that have me up all night trying to answer!
I would submit that there is a gender difference found in the not-uncommon scenario cited in the Post, subsequently, we are both right!! Damn, how good is this Wakefield Doctrine…
As to your statement, …”I think clark-like attributes were beaten into me as a child but I am a Scott at heart” this is not so off-base as it may sound (well, kinda off-base) but the thing is we ‘are’ one type predominately and have secondary (and tertiary) characteristics of the ‘other two’. In my case. I am (predominately) a clark with a strong secondary scottian aspect. This is not to say that a clark cannot have a secondary rogerian aspect…we can.
Hats? oh, we have hats…lol (btw the normal thing is for me to see the email and reply to make arrangements of where to mail the hat)… I haven’t figured out any other way to keep that info private…and I for one am not going to type my email into this Comment…lol
(I’m sure we will figure something out…hey we’re frickin clarks! lol)
@AP:
Of course male scotts would always get a considerably high number Valentines Day cards. And as to looking forward to it, well let’s just say that the number of cards would affirm his popularity.
As to your anonymity, did you give your cards out anonymously?
btw, my comment was not intended to reflect bitterness. More as a funny observation.
Wow! Love this: “..gyno-centric guy-bait(ing), toy-with-the-emotions-of-innocent-bystanders,…” LOL
What a nice little Valentines story…..
Hi AP! Always refreshing to hear input from someone new. Welcome!
It’s pretty typical here for the regulars at the Doctrine to try and figure out “who” the new guy or gal is. You know, practice the theory. Can be tricky at times but I am going to go out on a limb and say that no, you are not a scott (predominantly), but rather a clark with a strong secondary scottian aspect. Why do I think this? You wrote this first:
“My initial comment was lost when I failed to enter an email address so I will try this again. (In trying to preserve my personal information I am now trying with a no-longer-used email address.)”
A scott would not feel the need to explain a thing. No sirree. (and the line in the parentheses – classic)
Bitterness? Who said anything about that? You being intuitive, projecting? (clarklike characteristic)
If you received a fair amount of valentines and are a clark then you be female – clarklike female as we like to say around these parts:) Not surprisingly, the majority of those would have been from secret male admirerers.
You almost have it down with “now where’s my hat?” but again a scott would simply make the demand.
I sure hope I’ve figured correctly that you are a clark AP as I enjoy talking to others of my kind:) Not that scotts and rogers aren’t fun but let’s face it, we can go places they can’t. LOL
Hope to see you ’round these parts again real soon
It appears he was a heterosexual . . .