Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

So, what exactly is it you wanna know?

How all this started? The hacks and shortcuts?*

Nah, it’s already 8 am and, for reasons best left non-examined**, we’ll not get into anything overly practical, this Monday morning.

Speaking of not overly-practical, who wants us to tell the story of the ‘Eureka Moment’ of the Wakefield Doctrine (more properly, of ‘the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers‘, as the name, ‘Wakefield Doctrine’ did not come into use until this blog debuted in 2009.)

Gotta interrupt the post here, for a moment. We’ve always referred to a certain event in the 1980s as the beginning of our little personality theory. And, we will surely continue to use that phrase. That said, we just looked up a translation¹ of ‘Eureka Moment‘ and, our non-personal mentor/instructor/guide, Wikipedia says:

“Eureka” comes from the Ancient Greek word εὕρηκα heúrēka, meaning “I have found (it)”, which is the first person singular perfect indicative active of the verb εὑρίσκω heurískō “I find”. It is closely related to heuristic, which refers to experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery.

Not sure if we’re prepared to claim that, in the apocryphal and eponymous occurrence qualifies as a discovery. At least not in the sense that I was consciously seeking it. (Anymore than every other clark in the world is and always has.)

So, what do you want to hear about? The foot notes and asteroids that are springing up like rules at a rogerian fan club closed-session or the aforementioned event from the 1980s?

While we’ve got the story in the About page, right here in the blog, who the heck spends more time at an ‘About’ page than it takes to see if there’s any photos?

In the early nineteen eighties, my friend Scott worked in a music store in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He was both salesman, (the store, known to some as ‘Tony American’s’ for reasons lost in the fog of history,  sold guitars, amplifiers, drums, PAs and a variety of recording equipment. It was pretty much a go-to place for those in a band or trying to start a band), and repairman.

The layout of the store is exactly you picture it, were I to tell you, ‘It was on the ground floor of an early 20th century Art Deco retail/office building. There were sidewalks and parking lots and not many trees or grass. The interior was an open layout and entirely visible through the plate glass windows that separated it from the outside world. The floors were linoleum and the door handle, brass. The right side and rear walls were fronted by glass display cases that were filled with the smaller and more prone to shoplifting than, say a Marshall stack and full kit of Tama drums. The repair department was at the back wall.

On one early afternoon in a non-Summer part of the year, (it could have been 1983 or, it might have been late 1982, hard to say), I stopped by the store to visit. I’d no sooner said hello when the brass bell over the door, (yes, they were into brass in the ’20s and ’30s), politely announced the arrival of a customer. Seeing the young man stride purposely towards the back of the store, black-metal rectangle under his arm, power cord swaying like a well-behaved dog content to see the world from the safety of the arm of her human, I did what you know a clark would do in this situation.

I faded into the background.

“Hey, man,” the customer placed the equipment on the section of glass counter directly in front of a cardboard-and-magic-marker wall sign that read; ‘Repair Department’;

“My uncle gave me this thing for my birthday and it worked only once,” he scanned the interior of the store, not slowing at me, now standing next to a wall of solid body guitars and, for emphasis concluded, “but now it don’t work at all.”

Scott watched it all in a comfortable, if not alert, silence…

(…to be continued!)

 

* hate to disappoint you, but the whole Wakefield Doctrine is a reality hack… (which of the three? great question! ask in comments and we’ll totally write a post addressing that rogerian question)

** and, no, not that the answer*** is anything earth or paradigm-shaking, it is just (and this is actually one of the positives of the predominant worldview of Herd Members) that there is a time for cataloguing and there is a time to enjoy the process

*** like there ever is a singular, solitary answer… lol

1) why no, I don’t know why we haven’t done so before this, but I wouldn’t bet the farm that we didn’t and simply forgot.